There are nights during an NHL season when a team just isn’t ready for what their about to face.
Friday night at Canada Life Centre, the Winnipeg Jets had one of those nights.
In front of a crowd of 13,693 of the faithful, the Jets squandered some early chances, were scored against first and never recovered, falling 5-1 to a very good young flock of Anaheim Ducks.
Tom Washe beats Clay Stevenson for Anaheim's second goal (Phot by James Carey Lauder)
Kyle Connor, playing in his 700th NHL game, scored his sixth goal of the season, but it was hardly enough as the Ducks got goals from, five different players to drop the Jets to 3-1-1 early in the 2026-27 season.
The Ducks outshot the Jets 17-16 as Clay Stevenson took the loss in the Jets net, stopping just 12 of 16 Anaheim shots. The final Anaheim shot and goal by Nikita Nesterenko, was an empty netter to put an exclamation point on Anaheim’s impressive road win.
In the first period, the Jets took complete control. Through the first 14 minutes, they had outshot Anaheim 7-1 and missed the net from point blank range five more times. But as the Jets often do, they squandered outstanding scoring chances and it cost them.
At 14:41, the Jets were in control in the Anaheim zone until Brad Lambert game up the puck and the Ducks had a three-on-two break. Jeff Mallott was sprung down the left wing, went in alone on Clay Stevenson and while Stevenson stopped Mallott’s shot, he couldn’t stop the rebound. Judd Caulfield was allowed to slam the rebound into an empty net and Anaheim had a 1-0 lead.
The Jets owned the game to that point but as they did on dozens of occasions last year, they failed to take advantage of their own hard work and found themselves a goal behind.
The highlight of the opening period arrived at 19:47 when Jets captain Adam Lowry laid a huge bodycheck on Anaheim’s A-J Greer in the Ducks zone. The Ducks’ Travis Mitchell decided he was going to make Lowry pay for his “indiscretion” and the gloves came off. Lowry pounded on the former Islanders D-man until he tapped out. Lowry got five for fighting while Mitchell got five for getting hammered and two for unsportsmanlike conduct.
The Jets, who outshot Anaheim 7-4 in the opening period, had a power play to start the second period and had a number of solid chances but couldn’t beat Lukas Dostal. Then, while they had control of the Ducks’ zone and were outshooting the visitors 11-5, Anaheim broke out of their zone and two passes later, Tom Washe had beaten Clay Stevenson for the Ducks’ second goal.
At this point, the boo birds at Canada Life Centre started announcing their presence. The Jets simply weren’t prepared to play, and poor Clay Stevenson even had to stop a two-on-nothing Anaheim breakaway. The Jets couldn’t even capitalize on the first four power-plays of the game. It was ugly.
The teams went to their dressing rooms after 40 minutes with Anaheim up 2-0. Winnipeg had outshot the Ducks 13-9 and enjoyed territorial dominance, but their inability to score was on full display.
In the third period, Sam Colangelo, Mikael Granlund and Nesterenko scored for Anaheim. Connor, from Mark Scheifele and Dylan DeMelo scored Winnipeg’s only goal. It was a lovely goal but it went hand-in-hand with an ugly loss and one that needs to be forgotten before the Jets play host to the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m.
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