Captain adam lowry reflects on another year lost
Winnipeg Jets captain Adam Lowry spoke to the media alongside goaltender Connor Hellebuyck Thursday morning, as the two teammates tried to summarize the team’s 4-1 first-round series loss to the Colorado Avalanche.
“I would say winning in this league is extremely difficult,” Lowry said. “You can have a great regular season, but it’s about finding your game, finding ways to win at the most critical time of year. I think to take that next step it’s — like Helle mentioned with the intensity — it’s learning how critical every shift is, whether it’s the second period or it’s late in a game.”
Lowry is one of many Jets players who appeared during the team’s year-end press conference from Winnipeg’s downtown venue. Across the board, Jets players spoke of searching for answers and takeaways from their disappointing first-round exit.
Perhaps the first place the team should look is toward its captain.
Lowry’s postseason efforts this season stem far beyond his stat-line of two goals and a minus-three rating.
The third line centreman was trusted with defending Colorado’s top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Valeri Nichushkin and Mikko Rantanen all series.
Despite 11 goals from the Avs’ gunslingers in the series, only five of those goals came at even-strength.
Lowry finished a team-best 61.1% in the face-off circle this postseason, winning 55 of the 90 draws he took.
Despite averaging only 14:21 of ice time in the playoffs, Lowry was second on the team in faceoffs taken, just two behind Mark Scheifele (92), who averaged 21:43 of ice time per-game in the series - over seven minutes more per-game than Lowry.
Lowry also led all Jets forwards in face-offs taken (1,380), and face-off win per centage in the regular season. He did this despite playing over four minutes less than Scheifele each night—who was second in draws taken with 1,253.
Lowry’s 25 hits this postseason led the Jets, while his 181 hits in the regular season led all forwards – an impressive 65 more than Winnipeg’s next-most-physical forward, Nino Niederreiter.
Coach Rick Bowness and the Jets trust their captain, having called on him in various crucial moments throughout the regular season and playoffs.
This is because Lowry exemplifies the qualities Winnipeg seemingly fell short of in the postsesaon.
“Just the desire to win every battle and the desire that the guy across from you isn’t going to beat you that night. That’s the learning curve. That’s the thing you need to do to take the next step,” said Lowry Thursday on what the Jets need to take away from the loss.
When the stakes are high, Lowry has a history of rising to the occasion.
In his last three postseasons, Lowry has finished third, fifth, and first in team scoring. He accomplished this with significantly less ice time than the players around him.
The 10-year Jet is also fifth all-time in Jets postseason scoring, with 49 playoff appearances under his belt.
After sweeping the Avalanche 3-0 in the regular season series, the Jets became complacent at the wrong time—allowing Colorado to do what it does best throughout the first-round matchup.
“We didn’t do a good enough job protecting the middle, slowing down their rush, kind of slowing them down and getting them away from what makes them successful,” said Lowry, crediting the Avs’ slot play and ability to rush the puck.
“This year we were dynamite at protecting the slot, denying zone entries and things like that,” Lowry added, mentioning the results were not the same come playoff time. “The chances we gave up, we gave up so many grade-As.”
MoneyPuck.com says the Avalanche generated 83 medium-to-high-danger shot attempts in the series, with 27 high-danger shots.
The Jets mustered only 15 high-danger shots, and 51 medium-to-high-danger shots - significantly less than their divisional opponents.
Lowry says the Jets tried to adjust throughout the series, though it wasn’t always reflected on-ice.
“I think part of it is on us as players and the accountability of implementing those changes consistently,” said Lowry. “We had one PK kind of in Game 5, we changed the forecheck, like, it wasn’t for lack of awareness where things were going wrong. I think part of it was now going out there and performing on the ice.”
For now, Lowry and the Jets have been forced into a long offseason, where they will have lots of time to digest what they could have done differently.
“We had a great regular season. We showed over 82 games we can be a really good team, but at the end of the day, we didn’t perform in the playoffs, that doesn’t really mean a whole lot.”
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