Penalties frustrate Jets’ best efforts

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This article was published 02/01/2015 (3917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ONE of the issues that clouded Wednesday’s 5-2 home loss to the Islanders was a mounting frustration with the officiating.

The messy story ended with Jets defenceman Dustin Byfuglien’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty with 1:33 left in the game.

In the game, the Islanders had seven power plays, the highest total in a Jets game since giving up eight to the Sharks in the second game of the season. No NHL team has been shorthanded as many times, 150, as the Jets this season.

“You’ve got to get a read (on the officiating),” Maurice said after Wednesday’s game. “But that’s part of what we’re going through. We’ve got to figure out a way to play our game, play as aggressively as we can, physically as we can and stay out of the penalty box at the same time.

“There are other teams that are fairly high penalty-minute teams and still manage to play a real disciplined game. They get their roughings and some of the physical ones that go against them, but you’ve got to stay out of the penalty box on some of those stick infractions. The ones that you don’t like, that you think are missed calls, that happens for everybody.”

Byfuglien declined to be interviewed after the game.

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The Jets — and certainly their fans — had numerous grievances with some of Wednesday’s calls, in particular apparent embellishments by Islanders’ Calvin deHaan, Johnny Boychuk and Lubomir Visnovsky.

Visnovsky, in particular, heard the rage of the MTS Centre faithful after he went spinning out of control from a slash to the legs by Jets’ forward Mathieu Perreault.

Visnovsky came right back onto the ice for the ensuing power play.

Monday, when Winnipeg lost 3-2 to Minnesota, Perreault suffered a far greater two-hander to the back of his legs from Wild defenceman Ryan Suter, but no call was made then.

“I don’t get the call against me, but as soon as I do it, I always get that call against,” Perreault said Wednesday. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think of these refs lately.

“It’s very frustrating. It was like that all night. They made some weird calls. But it’s a tough job they have, so I don’t want to be too hard on them. But they definitely struggled tonight.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca