Jets fall 4-2 to visiting Red WIngs
The Winnipeg Jets are ice-cold. Dare we say as cold as Winnipeg’s frigid weather. A Jets team that played with so much passion and pizzazz for the first three months of the season has fallen into a January funk that has put a damper on what had been a brilliant first half.
Saturday night in front of 14,527 of the faithful at Canada Life Centre, the Jets started slowly and ended with a thud as the lowly Detroit Red Wings came to town and knocked off the No. 1 team in the NHL 4-2.
Dylan Larkin had a pair of goals and Alex Lyon was solid in goal for Detroit, but that wasn’t the story. This Jets team that was so dynamic for so long has fallen into an offensive funk. Since New Year’s Eve, when they lost 5-2 in Colorado, the Jets have come home and lost 4-3 in overtime to Anaheim and then, on Hockey Night in Canada, they fell 4-2 to the same Red Wings team that they whipped 6-2 in Detroit on Oct. 30.
At the midway point of the campaign, the Jets are now 27-12-2, but they’re 0-2-1 in their last three and 0-1-1 after the first two games of their current season-long, eight-game homestand.
“Yeah, a couple unfortunate bounces, hit a bunch of posts as a team. You beat the goalie, but you can’t beat the post,” said Jets forward Cole Perfetti. “The effort was there. Sometimes you’re not going to get those bounces.”
The Red Wings opened the scoring on their second power play in the first six minutes of the opening period when Dylan Larkin scored his 15th of the year at 6:25. At this point, it appeared it was going to be a long night for the Jets. Eight minutes into the game and the Jets had found themselves shorthanded twice, had lost star D-man Josh Morrissey after he was hit in the face with a shot and was sent to the room for repairs and the Wings had outshot them 10-1. It was ugly, especially against a team that was not only 25th in the league, but also a club the Jets had whipped 6-2 in Detroit on Oct. 30.
After Cole Perfetti and Logan Stanley each hit the post behind Detroit netminder Alex Lyon and Gabriel Vilardi and Kyle Connor both missed glorious scoring opportunities, the Jets escaped the first period down 1-0. On the bright side Morrissey was sewn up and got back into the game, but on the downside, Colin Miller took a puck to the face and struggled to get down the corridor to the locker room.
Detroit outshot Winnipeg 17-7 in the opening 20 minutes and were it not for Hellebuyck, it could have been disaster.
At the 3:33 mark of the second period, the Wings picked up third power play of the game when Tyler Motte fell down and for reasons known only to referee Chris Schlenker, drew a tripping penalty on David Gustafsson who never touched Motte. The Wings took advantage of their good fortune exactly one minute later as Lucas Raymond scored his 16th of the season from Patrick Kane. Detroit led 2-0 and the Jets looked completely cooked.
However, at 5:48, the Jets got a little puck luck. Morrissey took a pass from Mark Scheifele at the point and fired what seemed to be a harmless shot that went through four players in front and the right between Lyon’s legs to make it 2-1. Nino Niederreiter also drew an assist as the offensively-slumping Jets finally got on the board.
Winnipeg completely dominated the second period and should have blown the game wide open. But thanks to Schlenker and his whistle (and more often the lack of a whistle) and a good effort by Lyon in the Wings’ goal, the Jets trailed 2-1 after 40 minutes. Winnipeg outshot Detroit 10-3 and made the Wings look like an AHL team for the final 10 minutes, but it didn’t show on the scoreboard.
In the third period, the Jets came out pancake flat. They just had no jump at all and it cost them at 7:14 when Alex DeBrincat was the last to touch a puck that got past Hellebuyck off the skate of Jets defenceman Ville Heinola. At this stage, with Detroit leading 3-1 the near-sellout crowd at Canada Life Centre sounded more like pallbearers at a morgue than a group of supporters at a hockey arena.
At 11:43, the Jets got their second power play opportunity of the night and did nothing. In fact, they didn’t even manage a shot on goal. It was brutal.
Then, out of the blue at 16:46, the Jets caught another break. Vladislav Namestnikov got the puck back to Neal Pionk who fired a low shot at Lyon that was tipped past the Detroit netminder by Nikolaj Ehlers. It was 3-2 and the Jets had some life.
The Jets pulled Hellebuyck for a sixth attacker with two minutes to play and while they had a couple of decent chances, the Red Wings finished it off when Dylan Larkin scored an empty netter at 19:31.
It was a disappointing loss for a team that should be so much better. The Jets were outshot 29-23, won only 40 per cent of their faceoffs and didn’t have a sniff of a power-play goal on two chances.
The Jets will get another chance to right the ship on Tuesday night when the Nashville Predators come to town for a 7 p.m. start.
The Jets had better pick it up or this will be a very long homestand.
Photos from Saturday's game vs. Detroit are courtesy of Scott Stroh and James Carey Lauder:
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