Butter-finger Jets can’t hold lead

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This article was published 24/11/2014 (3964 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets have begun building a body of work in terms of a style but the job’s going to get more difficult if they keep butter-fingering the lead.

For the second game in a row in their own barn, the Jets let advantages slip away and lost third periods, this time falling to the St. Louis Blues 4-2 before 15,016 customers at the MTS Centre.

Winnipegger Ryan Reaves delivered the lethal blow Sunday, scoring 2:25 into the third to put St. Louis ahead for the first time, and to stay. With wins on back-to-back days on the road on the weekend, the multi-talented Blues have risen to the top of the Central Division standings with 29 points.

The Jets, meanwhile, have been stuck on 23 points (now 10-9-3) after losses to the Red Wings on Thursday and Blues Sunday. They go on the road for three games starting Tuesday in Columbus in jeopardy of not collecting points in more than a week.

“The only question I have right now is that since I changed the lines (a week ago), you feel like you’re getting more offensive chances but you’re giving up four and four (goals)… and is that good enough?” coach Paul Maurice said Sunday.

His defensively-sound team has given up those pair of fours against in the last two games, the first time that’s happened all season.

 

Bump in the road?

You’d be hard-pressed to say the Jets’ style is falling apart.

They’ve led in both games but lost to Detroit and St. Louis, two experienced and talented teams who have found the cracks and taken advantage. For substantial stretches of both games, the Jets seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

“We’re a better team than moral victories,” defenceman Mark Stuart said on the matter. “We did do some good things. We can take a lot from that game as far as that goes, but a loss is a loss and we’re not happy with that. We’re going to move forward here. We’ve got a huge week coming up.”

 

Little off schneid

Jets centre Bryan Little scored a first-period goal to give Winnipeg its first of two leads on the afternoon. It was his first point in eight games.

‘We’re

learning how to play a real aggressive game and we’re going

to get better at it.’

— Jets coach Paul Maurice

“It’s been more than a few (games), but I feel like our line’s been playing really good defensively lately,” he said. “The offence has been tough to come by.”

Little said his team has a ways to go to put it together.

“It was a kind of game where we’d get momentum and control the play and they’d have a good stretch and control the play and we’re trapped in our own end,” he said. “It was kind of back-and-forth like that and that’s not exactly the game we want to play.

“We’re going to stay positive.”

 

Discipline no issue

The numbers are starting to hint at an issue, but Maurice doesn’t agree the Jets are undisciplined after a game that favoured the Blues in power plays, 5-1.

Four of Winnipeg’s infractions were in the offensive zone.

By strict numbers, the Jets, with 84 times short, are second-highest in the NHL. And by time, now 151 minutes 32 seconds, they have been short-handed the most of all 30 teams this season.

“(On time), it means we’re not giving up many goals so we’re out there for the whole two minutes,” Stuart said.

“Not even a remote chance (we’re undisciplined),” Maurice said. “I don’t like the call on (Evander) Kane. The puck over the glass and a high stick, that will happen. He (Kane) was just trying to get around a guy. He’s not casual about it and he’s not reaching in from behind. There weren’t roughing penalties after plays or tripping penalties for being lazy.

“We had a stretch earlier in the year that we took (them). Just go back to San Jose, we took some undisciplined penalties. I haven’t felt that. Times short? We’re learning how to play a real aggressive game and we’re going to get better at it.

“Minutes short? Good for us. Because if you’re not leading the league in times short but you are in minutes short it means you’re killing a lot of penalties.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca