What Jets had there was failure to communicate

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This article was published 15/02/2021 (1664 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was a goal that sucked the wind out of the Winnipeg Jets and sealed a 2-1 victory for the visiting Ottawa Senators.

With eight seconds remaining in Saturday’s affair at the downtown Winnipeg arena, Ottawa forward Brady Tkachuk tipped home a Mike Reilly shot that took a couple of bounces before beating Connor Hellebuyck. The play started with Hellebuyck controlling the puck before it slid into the no-touch corner, only to be startled when defenceman Derek Forbort didn’t pick it up. The miscommunication led to a turnover and the game-winning goal.

Hellebuyck was unavailable after the game but was back in front of reporters Sunday to offer his take on the goal.

“A bit of a miscue between us back there. But at the end of the day, the puck was in the corner, they still cycled it up, got a point shot and a tip that bounced off the ice,” he said. “So, I mean, the miscue takes all of the attention, but at the end of the day, they still made a really nice play, unfortunately.”

It was the third time this season the Jets have allowed a deciding goal in the dying moments of a game. Hellebuyck has been in net for two of those games, including a 3-2 loss to the Calgary Flames back on Feb. 9, when Elias Lindholm scored a power play goal with 1:42 remaining. The other game — a 4-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers — ended with Leon Draisaitl scoring on Laurent Brossoit with 0.7 seconds left.

Hellebuyck, who has bounced back admirably from questionable goals mid-game a number of times this season, takes the same approach with those goals as he does the ones that happen late in games. Even if they do hurt more.

“It does sting and I hate losing. I hate it with a passion. It feels like a blink of an eye and suddenly, we’re losing the game. There was nothing we could do about it. It’s unfortunate, but I like my game and I like how I’ve felt this year, how I’ve built my game this year,” Hellebuyck said. “So, for me, it’s not going to weigh too much on me because I know what I’m going to do for the next game and for the rest of the year. I’m going to bring it and I’m going to battle as hard as I possibly can. I believe in that game and I believe that game is going to win more than it’s going to lose.”

QUARTERLY REPORT

With 14 games played this season, the Jets have reached the quarter mark of the 2021 campaign. Winnipeg currently sits in fourth place — third place if you were to go by winning percentage — with a record of 8-5-1.

Nikolaj Ehlers has been arguably the Jets best player this season, with a team-leading nine goals and plus-minus of 10. Here’s what he’s seen from the Jets so far this year.

“We’ve had some really good games, where we really played the way we wanted to. It’s been tough to put together a full 60 (minute effort) and, of course, we’ve had games where we haven’t played our best. So, we’re still trying to get there,” Ehlers said.

“There have been a lot of positives. I really liked the way that we have played in most games. It’s just a matter of putting together the full-60 and being able to give ourselves a chance to win every single game. We’ve had some pretty great goaltending. Obviously, we know that we can’t play in the O-zone for 60 full minutes, but we can give ourselves a better chance of playing a lot more down there. So, there are some things that we need to fix and we talk about that every single day, so it’s going the right way.”

NEW-LOOK TOP-6

The Jets will showcase yet another look to their top-six forward group against the Edmonton Oilers Monday.

With Pierre-Luc Dubois out for a second straight game, Maurice has moved Mark Scheifele between Blake Wheeler and Andrew Copp, while Paul Stastny will play with Ehlers and Kyle Connor.

“This year I feel that Ehlers and Kyle Connor, and now we’ve got a new guy in Paul Stastny, they’re almost new players each year. Like, Nikolaj’s a different player. Kyle understands his game now, and can assess his game very well. And Andrew Copp. He’s added some offence to his game. So I would say I’m still learning about what might be the best combinations,” Maurice said.

“I also would love to be able to get to the point where I had more than one answer. To be able to go into Edmonton, move one piece around, now your lines look a little bit different because of the matchup. And have that be a real positive thing. A lot of times you make adjustments because you never adjust something that’s really working well for you. You make adjustments because you don’t like something. You’d like to get ahead of that sometimes and say, ‘OK, we’re going to play a team that looks like this, this is their line matchups, this is their D, you’ve got a pretty good idea how they’re going to run against each other, we flip one guy we look different.’ And being on the road and being at home, we’re getting to an age of maturity I think with our forwards that we’re going to be able to do that and I’d like to experiment with it.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

twitter: @jeffkhamilton