In Winnipeg, the Minnesota Wild grounded the Jets on Tuesday, 4-1, to hand them their Third straight loss.
The Wild have won seven of their last eight matches.
Filip Gustavsson made 31 saves in the Wild win.
“From the goaltender out, we played the right way. We did a lot of good things,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “We got pucks out, we got pucks in, we didn’t mess around. Not a lot of turnovers. Just a real, almost a perfect game for coming off a break. We simplified. We didn’t make anything complicated tonight. So it was not necessarily the game plan, but the execution was fantastic.”
Pierre-Luc Dubois was the lone striker for the Jets, his goal came in the opening period.
The Wild grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Jared Spurgeon and Mats Zuccarello.
“[Spurgeon] is just everything,” Evason said. “How can you say anything without being positive about him? His play is one thing, but you guys don’t see, and maybe you do see, in between whistles and timeouts of him going up and down the bench. Coaches don’t have to say a thing, and that’s so exciting when your leader is not only saying the right thing, but he’s doing the right things, dictating to the group this is how we play. And he goes out and executes, and you can’t do anything but follow. His game has been all-around great.”
The Jets dropped to 21-13-1.
“The details are off a little bit,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “It’s not as strong as it once was, but that kind of goes into our whole 5-on-5 (game) right now. It’s not as strong as it was. Our attention to detail is not there.”
The Wild extended the lead to 3-1 in the second period on a marker from Frederick Gaudreau .
“I don’t think we played up to the standard we expect out of everyone in terms of execution,” Jets forward Adam Lowry said. “Our passing wasn’t very crisp, decision-making, reads off face-offs, reads in and on them. I think we can play fast and be more aggressive on the forecheck. We can create more turnovers that will lead to extended zone time.”
With just over two minutes left in the game, Samuel Walker scored his first career NHL goal into an empty net for the 4-1 final.
“I just kind of held it until [Winnipeg forward Kyle Connor] was away, and luckily it went in,” Walker said. “It was nice to have a little break, a couple of days off (over Christmas), but guys are ready to go, and just go out there and have fun.”
Connor Hellebuyck made 24 saves in the Jets loss.
“They kind of switched up their system a little bit from when we played them in Minnesota (a 6-1 loss on Nov. 23),” Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon said. “I think the biggest thing for them is the forwards blow out of the zone, and their D throw the high flippers, and the hard rims and bouncing pucks are tough to handle sometimes. They’ve got good players that can make plays. Their top line can obviously hold on to pucks and find the open guy. For the most part we did a pretty good job coming back. They made some nice plays on their goals. Overall, it clearly wasn’t good enough.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.