After a quiet, relatively uneventful shutout against the Anaheim Ducks last night, the Winnipeg Jets had a chance to close out their 3-game Pacific roadtrip with a season sweep of the Golden Knights. Vegas has been extremely good of late, winning 9 of their last 10 matches. The addition of Mark Stone has been a game-changer, and their offense has dialed it up past 11. Winnipeg needed to start out of the gates with a strong effort, but fate dictated otherwise in a rink where the house always wins.
The First Period
The Jets faced some early pressure from Vegas’ aggressive forecheck, but Winnipeg managed to keep the Knights to the perimeter. The Knights reacted by trying to fling shots from difficult angles, hoping to bank one off a stick or skate for a deflection. William Karlsson managed to make one of these opportunities count, sneaking a puck between Brossoit’s pads from the goal-line area. Laurent probably said something I can’t repeat here, but the goal was an absolute howler to let through.
Winnipeg struggled to regain its composure briefly, but the top-6 started to create some great offensive looks against Malcolm Subban. One sequence had Subban sprawled out, desperate to bat the puck out of the crease before the Jets potted the rebound. All the positive momentum was washed out by Joe Morrow, who tried to backhand a pass and fed it right to Paul Stastny. Former Winnipeg legend Paul Stastny found Reilly Smith, who went top shelf against Brossoit.
I have no idea what Maurice continues to see in Morrow, but benching Bogdan Kiselevich for this dude is inexcusable. Morrow isn’t an NHL-caliber defenseman, and he needs to ride pine for the remainder of the season. Of course, that won’t happen, but it’d be nice to think we have a decent second or third-pairing blueliner who can help out. I’d also be extremely happy if the coaching staff would stop putting Kyle Connor and Tyler Myers on the PK. Those guys can’t defend to save their lives, and putting them in a man-disadvantage situation is begging for a goal against.
The Second Period
Well, that was depressing. Brossoit appeared to injure something, potentially at the end of the first period, but remained in for the second. Whatever ailed him clearly continued to do so, because he had trouble resetting on a number of saves. During a Jets power play, Nosek scored a shorthanded marker to put the Knights up 3-0. That prompted the end of Brossoit’s night, but if it was plainly obvious he was injured to us, what in heaven’s name was he still doing in the game?
The misery only got worse with Smith’s second goal of the night, immediately followed by another Karlsson goal. The Jets looked like they’d given up the ghost, despite having some quality stretches of offensive possession. I get that it’s a back to back, but the way they collapsed against Vegas was really tough to watch. I hoped for a decently competitive game, but the Jets opted to make a real mess of it. So it goes. Oh, Laine’s back on the second line again, so that’s a thing. Hooray for the line blender!
The Third Period
Eh, I feel like this photo of Morrissey captures the rest of my thoughts quite well.
Cheers
- At least it wasn’t losing to Ottawa twice in a week.
Jeers
- Yeah, everything else sucked. So it goes.
