In Winnipeg, the Jets’ late season swoon continued on Thursday night in a 4-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. 
“They’re a playoff team. It’s a team we’re starting to develop a mutual hatred for,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Those types of wins mean a little bit more. … It was physical, and those bring the best out of us.”
The teams entered the third period knotted at 1-1.
Barbashev scored his first at 14:31 of the third to snap the tie and give the Knights a 2-1 lead.
He collected his double at 18:15 for a 3-1 advantage when he hit an empty net.
“Pretty tight game, just got to give credit to our penalty kill (5-for-5),” Barbashev said. “They did a really good job for us today to keep us in the game, and this is maybe something we got to do better of just trying to stay out of the box.”
Jack Eichel also hit for an empty-netter at 19:26 for the 4-1 final count on the scoreboard.
Logan Thompson made 39 saves in the win.
The Golden Knights moved to 40-25-8 off their fifth straight game with a point.
“I would give our ‘D’ a credit for the penalty kill they did,” Cassidy said. “Logan was really good, whatever he saw, he saved. … Especially when you’re killing whatever amount of time we did. So, good for Logan, he’s been playing well and we need him.”
The Jets dropped to 44-23-6 off their fifth straight loss.
“It was a little more dangerous, and we missed a wide-open net in the third period,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said of the power play, which is 0-for-16 in its past five games. “You want those to go in. And we still generated shots. Bottom line is, we’ve got to score on it. No getting away from that. You have to score on it. We had five opportunities. We put more pucks to the net and had some better looks, but you have to score, and we didn’t score.”
Pavel Dorofeyev staked Vegas to a 1-0 lead at 15:56 of the opening stanza. He scored off a quick shot from the left circle.
Sean Monahan replied for the Jets at 3:31 of the middle frame for a 1-1 tie.
“You go to the net, it’s a great shot by him to see me there kind of alone, and nice to get to stick on it,” Monahan said. “You are always trying to get better, and everyone says it’s an important time of the year. It’s time for us to push and try and hit our peaks.”
Connor Hellebuyck made 23 saves in the loss.
“Obviously, it [stinks] right now, but last game we had a lot of good things, and today we did a lot of really good things as well,” the Jets’ Nikolaj Ehlers said. “I think we deserved better. But we are definitely going in the right direction.”
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