Beatdown in Beantown

BOSTON — The city that famously gave us a fictional bar where everybody knew your name and everyone’s troubles were all the same may have just served last call on the Winnipeg Jets’ season.

An ugly 6-1 loss to the Boston Bruins on Thursday night at TD Garden sure felt like closing time on their playoff hopes.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t execute but then our compete level dropped,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel, adding yet another biting, post-game soundbite to a year filled with far too many of them.

“As soon as you drop your compete level against a team like that, that’s the result that you’re going to get.”

Indeed, the lifeless performance may have some fans looking to drown their sorrows. Where’s Sam, Norm, Cliff and Woody when you really need them?

There were plenty of cheers for the home team, which beat the Jets in nearly every facet: Shots (27-24), hits (24-10), high-danger chances (16-11) and, most importantly, in the goals department. The Bruins really took over after a fairly even first period.

“Execution started to deteriorate after that,” Arniel noted.

Most concerning would be his reference to a fading compete level, which could otherwise be known as effort. How does a veteran team with seemingly everything to play for — Winnipeg began the night four points out of the final Western Conference wildcard spot and just 15 games left — come up lacking in that department?

“I don’t know the answer, exactly,” said Arniel. “I just know that we haven’t done that. I haven’t seen that since the break and coming out of the break. To me, that’s something that us coaches, with our leadership group, we’ve just got to focus and make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

The Jets fall to 28-29-11 — including just 2-3-1 in their last six games. That’s not exactly the late-season surge they desperately need.

The Bruins improve to 38-23-8 and currently occupy a wildcard playoff spot in the ultra-competitive and jam-packed Eastern Conference.

Pull up a stool, folks, as we dissect this one a bit further.

Sore spots

Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck had a second straight tough outing, giving up six goals on 27 shots while fellow U.S. Olympian Jeremy Swayman stood on his head at the other end of the rink. It was a similar story to Tuesday’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators where Juuse Saros was the best goalie on the ice.

“I think that that was just one of those ones where, when the team in front of him starts to struggle, it puts an awful lot of pressure on him,” said Arniel, who clearly didn’t want to hang the reigning Hart and Vezina Trophy winner out to dry.

“It’s just unfortunate we weren’t better in front of him.”

Defenceman Haydn Fleury had a truly miserable night and, after being on the ice for three of Boston’s first four goals, was stapled to the bench for much of the third period. Fleury has struggled for a bit now and is likely to be a healthy scratch next game — especially with Neal Pionk on the cusp of returning from a two-month injury absence.

Ville Heinola, who was the lone healthy scratch Thursday, is another option.

Winnipeg’s dynamic duo of Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor were held in check by the Bruins, generating just one shot each and going minus-three. It’s hard to pin much blame on them, since they have carried the team offensively for most of the season. But a game like this illustrates how easy it can be to shut the Jets down if you can contain the pair.

A lack of consistent scoring beyond the top line has been a season-long storyline.

Bright spots

The power play struck for a second straight game, with Jonathan Toews executing a perfect net-front tip off an Elias Salomonsson shot in the third period which briefly cut the deficit to 4-1.

Toews, who scored in four straight January games followed by a 20-game drought, has now lit the lamp in consecutive outings to give him nine on the year.

Salomonsson continues to impress and, in addition to setting up the lone goal, was promoted to the top blue-line pairing with Josh Morrissey for the third period. He did not look out of place whatsoever.

“He’s fun to play with, easy to play with. So I think we complemented each other pretty good,” said Salomonsson, who is now up to four points (1G, 3A) in his first 25 NHL games.

Arniel got the line blender out for the final frame, including moving Brad Lambert up to play with Adam Lowry and Cole Perfetti and Morgan Barron up to play with Isak Rosen and Alex Iafallo.

“I was just trying to get some kind of spark, try and change things up,” said Arniel.

Lambert had the other assist on Toews’ power play goal, giving him points in two of his last three games.

“Obviously, looking at the score it got away, but I feel like it wasn’t a 6-1 game,” said Lambert.

“I feel we had our fair share of chances as well and we weren’t able to capitalize on those and they got a couple of bounces and (then) it kinda snowballed from there.”

Key play

Lukas Reichel, making his Bruins debut after being called up from the American Hockey League, scores into an empty-net to make it 2-0 Boston early in the second period. Hellebuyck had skated out of his crease to try and play a rimmed puck, only to have it deflect off the boards right on to the stick of a waiting Reichel.

“That’s a crazy bounce,” said Arniel. “That kind of gets the whole group off-kilter a little bit on that bounce.”

THREE STARS:

1. BOS RW David Pastrnak: 1 goal, 1 assist

2. BOS G Jeremy Swayman: 23 saves

3. BOS C Pavel Zacha: 1 goal, 1 assist

Extra, extra

Boston is the NHL’s best home team, now with a record of 26-9-1.

Winnipeg, meanwhile, continues to struggle in enemy territory. The Jets won their first four road games this season, but now have just seven victories in the 28 that have followed (7-16-5). That’s a big problem since nine of their remaining 14 games are away from home.

The Bruins swept the season series after beating the Jets 6-3 on Dec. 11 at Canada Life Centre.

Winnipeg went 1-for-4 on the power play but blew a golden chance in the first period, with the score still tied 0-0, when Pastrnak clipped Jacob Bryson with a high-stick, drawing blood and leading to a double-minor that came up empty. Pastrnak would then open the scoring a couple minutes after exiting the sin bin.

Boston went 0-for-1 with the man advantage.

The Jets flew to Pittsburgh following the game and will face the surging Penguins on Saturday afternoon, then close out this quick road trip on Sunday afternoon against the New York Rangers.

“Really important games coming up,” said Salomonsson. “We just have to regroup and be ready in a couple days here.”

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