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Likely Ladd’s Last Game Ends in a Loss

The big story going into tonight's game was how it was potentially Andrew Ladd's last game in the MTS Centre wearing the home colours. Unfortunatley both the fans and Ladd won't be able to say they went out on a high note.

The Stars opened up the scoring thanks to Jason Spezza and the rest of the period went on without much of anything save for a few power plays. One thing that I did notice was how painfully quiet the crowd was during the game. It was almost like a funeral inside the MTS Centre. One might say the crowd was in fact mourning in a way. Early in the second Alexander Burmistrov scored his sixth of the season to tie it up. Five minutes later however, Valeri Nichushkin scored a nifty goal from up close and personal after the puck found it's way onto his stick after and awkward bounce.

Late in the period something very poetic happened. While the Jets were shorthanded, Joel Armia and Dustin Byfuglien were both in the Stars' zone. Then, from off the bench Andrew Ladd stormed towards the net and Byfuglien fed him a past as he put it past Annti Niemi to make it 2-2. The crowd were literally on their feet and even gave him a standing ovation to show Ladd just how much they appreciated him even though both parties could sense that this would in fact be the end.

In the third, the Jets were unable to do much of anything when given a 5 on 3 powerplay thanks to penalties to Patrick Sharp and Jordie Benn. The Stars on the other hand had much more success as Jamie Benn scored on the power play after Blake Wheeler was called for cross-checking. Not too long before Benn scored, Colt Sceviour put one away as well, but not until the refs called a stop to the game to review his shot. The replay showed that the puck went off the camera inside that net and the directly out.

Mark Scheifele was able to pull the Jets within one but Benn scored once again on an empty net, leaving the final score to be 5-3.

Assorted Musings

  • I know that the whole Russian/European players are divers stereotype is old hat, but I think I've seen enough from Nikolaj Ehlers to say that he does in fact, have the tendency to dive. He was even fined for it early in the year.
  • Unless a literal miracle occurs, Andrew Ladd's time as a Winnipeg Jet has come to a close. This whole day I was scouring Twitter and nothing positive was coming out. Even Gary Lawless during the second intermission said so. The writing is clearly on the wall. The only question now is how many more days is he still with the team?
  • Speaking of Lawless, during his Lawless and Order segment he said, "We've forgotten that the NHL left Winnnipeg". How? How does anyone forget fifteen whole years of not having an NHL team after only having one for five years? No matter how you try to spin, it was a terrible choice of words.

What were your thoughts on tonight's game? Leave them in the comment section below.

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