WINNIPEG – The hardships continue to burden the Winnipeg Jets as they were coming off a 5-2 defeat at the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks and were hoping to catch a break against another underachieving team bitten by injuries, the Tampa Bay Lightning who arrived in town just after two in the morning after suffering a shoot out loss in Minnesota Saturday night.
Things didn’t go as planned for the Jets as the visitors came out flying early and capitalized on a couple of bad mistakes by the Jets.
“Our season is on the line,” Jets forward Mathieu Perreault said. “We have to come out with energy. I don’t know what’s happening. We’re going to have to find a way with the boys all together and figure ourselves out.”
Jonathan Drouin stole the puck from Blake Wheeler who coughed it up at his own blue line and a beauty behind the back feed to Brayden Point who beat Connor Hellebuyck for his 7th of the year to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead.
“Picked Wheeler off there,” Drouin said. “He came back at me, [Mark] Scheifele came. I just went wide with speed, and [Point] set at the net and the goalie kind of shifted the other way off the post, and [Point] just tapped it in.”
Five minutes later off a faceoff win by Tampa , Jets forward Mathieu Perreault didn’t follow through and block the point and Brian Boyle tipped home a Victor Hedman shot for his 13th to give the Lightning a 2-0 lead heading into the second.
Ondrej Palat notched his 11th two minutes into the second to make it 3-0 .
“We’ve been playing well for a while now, the past two weeks maybe,” Drouin said. “We’re happy with our defensive play. Offense hasn’t been there that much, but again I think we started off capitalizing on our chances. But it definitely feels good having three of four points (from the back-to-back).”
Winnipeg did manage to come to life a bit in the second although they couldn’t beat Ben Bishop who was almost unbeatable on this night.
Jacob Trouba scored his 5th to break the goose egg in the third but that was all the Jets would mange on this night.
Although they outshot the Lightning 32-30 overall they were sloppy in their own end and the passing was very suspect on this night.
“We were playing from behind, and that makes it tough,” Wheeler said. “This league’s too good, especially playing against this team. I think they were in the Eastern Conference [Final] last year. They know what they’re doing. They’re starting to build some momentum and gain some confidence. It’s that time of year. Playing from behind against teams like that makes it really difficult.”
Hedman added his 8th into an empty net to give the Lightning a 4-1 win and hand the Jets a fourth straight loss.
Time is running out and patience is running out with some disgruntled fans with these inconsistent Jets.
WATCH: All Lightning vs. Jets highlights
The loss was also the 5th straight home ice loss something that hasn’t happened since 2014 for the Jets.
“I’m not up here selling the young problem, as young as we were, [with] three pretty good players out of their lineup. We just aren’t capable, or weren’t capable, tonight of driving harder than we were. I ran the bench hard last night chasing the game at 2-1. Most of our guys who played over 20 minutes looked like it,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said.
Dallas will be in town on Tuesday night and things wont get any easier .
You must be logged in to post a comment.