WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Jets were looking to close out this three-game home stand with a perfect record of three wins; the visiting Colorado Avalanche had other ideas as they hung around and ground-out a big 4-1 road victory in Winnipeg.
“Sometimes you can lose your focus (at the end of a road trip),” Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said. “I’m very proud of our guys that stayed focused and paid attention to the details of the game. I thought we did a good job defending and found ways to score big goals.”
The Jets received some bad news earlier in the day as it was announced that goalie Ondrej Pavelec will be out of action until at least January with a severe knee sprain.
Michael Hutchinson will be asked to carry the load in his absence stopped 25 shots and gave up three goals in the loss. He falls to 5-4-1 on the season.
“I don’t know that I’m ready to make a sweeping generalization about where we’re at as a team,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said.” I don’t feel that we’re that far off. We’ve got a lot of room to get better as a team. We do.”
The Jets came out flying and although the shots were even, the Jets controlled most of the play and had the better scoring chances but just couldn’t find the back of the net against Semyon Varlamov. One glaring stat was that the Jets missed the net a whopping 19 times after two periods.
Varlamov ended up stopping 20 of 21 to get the win including a couple stops on Blake Wheeler and Andrew Ladd. He improved to 4-6-1 overall.
The Jets got their lone goal in the first period from Toby Enstrom who fired a point shot through traffic for his first of the season.
“I think [Roy is] right,” Varlamov said. “He’s not going to lie. He’s always [telling] the truth. Mentally, it’s really tough to play when you’re giving up three, four goals every game, because I know that the expectations for me are huge. I know that. I’m ready to play and I just need to stay healthy.”
The Avalanche were led by Manitoba boy Cody McLeod who finished the game with a Gordie Howe hat trick as he scored his fifth of the season had an assist and dropped the mitts with Chris Thorburn for a good battle. McLeod a leader on this Avalanche team was all over the place tonight and ended up the games first star in front of family and friends who made the trek from Binscarth, Manitoba to see him play.
Other Avalanche goal scorers were Carl Soderberg who got his third, Matt Duchene notched his 11th, and Blake Comeau added an empty netter for his second.
“We’re teetering on that point where we could lose it too early [in the season] and get too far behind,” Duchene said. “[This] was a turning point for us hopefully and what we’ve got to build on going forward.”
Colorado who had lost three in a row closed out their five-game road trip with 2-3 record.
Notes : Winnipeg recalled forward Joel Armia from the Manitoba Moose he didn’t dress Monday night but will be with the team as they head out on an important three-game road trip .
The Jets will face the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night.
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