Jets fall to Flames 6-3

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/10/2017 (2897 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CALGARY – The Winnipeg Jets failed to cash in on a huge rebound opportunity Saturday night.

After a rather inauspicious start to the 2017-18 NHL season three nights ago, the Jets kicked off a three-game road trip with a solid first period in Calgary, but couldn’t stand the heat in the second as the Flames went on to torch them 6-3 in NHL action.

Winnipeg is winless in two tries after opening with a 7-2 defeat to the Toronto Maple Leafs, while the Flames evened their record at 1-1-0 with an impressive comeback victory in their home-opener.

Goals by Brandon Tanev, Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine propelled the Jets to a 3-1 first-period lead, but defensive miscues and penalty troubles – the banes of their existence last season and in the loss to the Leafs – allowed the Flames to gain momentum, storm back with four unanswered in the middle frame and another just 16 seconds into the third.

Flames defenceman T.J. Brodie scored his second goal of the game on goalie Steve Mason and set up tallies by Johnny Gaudreau and Kris Versteeg in the second period, while Swan River product Micheal Ferland swatted in a rebound. Mikael Backlund’s back-breaker early in the final frame came on a nifty deflection.

Jets captain Blake Wheeler said after a strong start, things unravelled in a hurry for a club still figuring out how to handle the slightest hint of adversity.

“Just the momentum turned. They get a power-play goal and that kind of gave them some life a little bit. The first period was really strong and that momentum swing was heavy and from there we kind of got away from our game, started to go on our own page a little bit and that’s the kiss of death,” he said.

“We have that game right where we want it… 3-1 into the second period, playing well, doing a lot of really good things and, you know, it just takes some confidence in who you are individually, what you do as a team, to realize that a goal here, a goal there, is not the end of the world, especially for our team. We know we can score goals and we should have enough confidence to not get all crazy when someone scores goals against us, because, believe it or not, we’re going to give up a few this year.”

In fact, the team has allowed 13 in just a pair of games, leaving new goalie Steve Mason with a bloated 6.53 goals-against average and a .831 save percentage.

Mason’s game was off against Toronto but faulting him against the Flames would be grossly unfair. The veteran netminder got very little help from his defensively irresponsible teammates, who took their marching orders late in the week, did all the drills and talked a good game for the cameras — then simply fell apart against Calgary.

He was screened on Brodie’s first blast and made a miraculous, sliding safe to rob Curtis Lazar just seconds before Brodie wired his second. Blame Dmitry Kulikov with an ugly giveaway that started the play that Gaudreau finished off, and point the finger at Tanev or Dustin Byfuglien for vacating the spot Versteeg scored from moments later.

The former Philadelphia puckstopper, who signed a two-year deal with Winnipeg on July 1, finished the evening with 39 saves, while Calgary goalie Mike Smith made 25 stops.

“It’s frustrating. You want to play well in front of the new guy and you want to let him get comfortable and we haven’t done that the first two games,” said centre Adam Lowry.

Added Wheeler: “He’s a little bit shell-shocked with the amount and the volume of Grade-A’s they get right in the crease and he’s making some good first saves through traffic and they’re tapping them into empty nets, guys free off the nets, so we got some work to do.”

Winnipeg’s special-teams units received plenty of special attention from the coaching staff during a pair of practices late this week. There’s more work to be done as the Jets’ power-play unit made good on one of three chances, while the penalty killers watched a pair of goals slip past Mason with the Flames on six man-advantage situations.

Things get no easier Tuesday as the Jets try their fortunes against Connor McDavid and the Oilers in Edmonton, before wrapping up the three-game western Canadian road trip Thursday against the Vancouver Canucks.

Winnipeg returns home to face the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night.

Head coach Paul Maurice said budging from an overall team-game mentality did his club in.

“When things get tough for you, you always revert back to your natural state. We want to do things by ourselves, make an extra play and beat a guy,” he said. “It’s not from not wanting to try. But simplicity is difficult for them to grasp in those difficult times because they feel they’re creative enough to do those things on their own, but nobody is.”

The Jets had another another swift start, creating a couple of juicy scoring chances before the game was four minutes old. Shawn Matthias was the recipient of two quality opportunities but his lack of finish extended to a second straight game.

The Jets fired three pucks past Flames goalie Mike Smith in the opening 20 minutes — and the goals by Tanev, Scheifele and Laine were generated in completely different scenarios.

Tanev picked off a pass, scooted away on a breakaway and roofed the puck while getting dragged down by Versteeg to open the scoring with his club shorthanded at 8:35 of the first.

Calgary evened the score on the same man advantage as Brodie hammered a slap shot through traffic. But just under two minutes later, Scheifele rifled his second goal of the season with the Jets on the power play to regain the lead for the visitors.

Less than three minutes later, Mathieu Perreault’s hard drive struck the post and bounced to the side of the next, and Laine cleaned up the leftovers for his first tally of the year.

The Flames used the first intermission to cue up the comeback and didn’t look back.

Winnipeg blue-liner Tyler Myers was asked what changed so dramatically after the first intermission?

“We got too cute. Until we figure out as a group that momentum changes, it’s going to change and sway back and forth. If they get a little bit of momentum, we can’t deviate from what makes us win hockey games. That first period’s exactly the way we want to play,” he said. “It feels good to play like that as a group and it seems like when things don’t go our way we start trying to thread the needle or make a really fancy play. We have to realize what gives us success as a group and we can look at that first period. But we gotta break that habit of trying to do something more when things get a little tight.”

“It’s mental, it’s preparation, it’s focus coming into a game. And it’s realizing in that first period how well we played as a group. We’ll win a lot of hockey games if we play games like that. We gotta start throwing 60 minutes together here, or it’s gonna happen what happened tonight.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell