USA Today

Game Notes:

• The Jets came out firing at the start as first period goals from Blake Wheeler and Dustin Byfuglien gave the Jets an early 2-0 lead. But like it’s been all year, the Jets couldn’t hold on to that lead as Austin Watson and Mike Fisher tied the game before the period ran out.
• The Preds took the lead just 19 seconds into the middle frame as Filip Forsberg sniped home his 28th of the season. But the Jets have an elite sniper of their own as Patrik Laine’s 33rd of the season with a laser of a wrister. Joel Armia (Man Crush) gave the Jets the lead with some nifty stickhandling and a polished finish. The Jets looked to regain their two goal lead on a Mathieu Perreault goal but it was waived off on an offside. It was the correct call as Paul Postma gloved the puck outside the blueline.
• The Jets defensive woes continued in the third as once again, they couldn’t hold onto a lead to the end. Ryan Johansen snuck one past Connor Hellebuyck to force overtime. James Neal won it in the extra frame with a power play marker as Dustin Byfuglien took a lazy penalty in overtime. Just before all that, Laine had a terrific opportunity to win it as he went through the Predators lineup with some gorgeous moves, only to be thwarted by Pekka Rinne.
• We mentioned defensive woes earlier but it bears mentioning again. The Jets really missed Jacob Trouba who missed the game with an upper body injury. Add in Toby Enstrom’s absence and the Jets were forced to put in Mark Stuart and Julian Melchiori into the lineup. The two along with Ben Chiarot struggled to keep up with the speedy Predator forwards and only amplifies the lack of depth on the Jets blueline. General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff must address this issue in the offseason or this team is going nowhere next season.
• Marko Dano had a rough night. Early in the first period, he took a bad hit from behind from C0dy McLeod in which Dano went face first into the boards. Dano returned but in the third period, he was levelled by Ryan Ellis with a hard but clean hit that chased Dano from the game. In both instances Chris Thorburn was on the ice but did nothing to stand up for his fallen teammate. In fact it was Shawn Matthias who went after McLeod at the end of the first, to answer to McLeod’s hit. Which begs the question, if Thorburn’s job is to protect his smaller teammates and prevent such actions, why does he just stand there and not get involved? That Thorburn takes a roster spot away from Nic Petan boggles the mind in the first place. Thorburn is a UFA at the end of the season and the Jets better not re-sign him.
• Great story by Sara Orlesky of TSN on Tyler Myers and what he and his wife went through with the birth of their son. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the link via Twitter to the story. Grab some kleenex. You’ll need it.

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