Jets Nation Recap: Decent Finish Covers Up Ugly Start In 5-3 Loss

Carolina scored early and scored often and the Jets looked like a group of major junior players who were in way over their head as the Hurricanes raced to a 4-0 lead after 20 minutes and thanks to score effects “hung on” for a 5-3 win in Winnipeg.

And now it’s on the road for six for the Jets.

The tank is looking strong.

At this point, going over what happened in the game is moot. Carolina came out ready to play and the Jets were anything but.

The Hurricanes came out with thee goals within the first five minutes. They added a fourth at the ten minute mark. The game was over almost as quickly as it started and it was the perfect exclamation point to this home stand from hell for the Jets where the team went 2 and 7 in the last 9 game played at home.

A home stand that was supposed to help vault the Jets into a playoff race has all but assured that the team should be sellers a little over three weeks from now.

Ignore the comeback attempt in the second half of the game. Quite a few will not and point to it as an example as the heart and “never quit” attitude that this team has and not even paying attention to score effects and basic human nature of the Hurricanes pretty much taking their foot off the proverbial gas pedal midway through the second period.

Tonight was a perfect example of how off-the-rails the Jets season has gone.

While we can still enjoy good efforts put forth on the ice (Burmi, Ehlers, Scheifele, Wheeler.. We see you.) and Jets wins will still be appreciated, no one having seen this game should be under the impression that this team wouldn’t be best suited to finish as low in the standings as possible for as high a draft pick as obtainable.

Hello Hutch – Connor Hellebuyck started his 12th game in a row and got lit up through mostly no fault of his own. The Jets defense committed horrible turnovers on two of the goals and on the third goal against allowed the Canes to enter the zone and pass around the puck at will resulting in three goals against that would have been tough saves for any goalie to make. Michael Hutchinson came in and after a bit of a shaky start himself, did alright settling things down. The fifth goal against was another case of non-defensive support that Hutch had zero chance on.

Defense – It was ugly. No other way to describe it. The less we think of it, the better.

This could have been better.. But it could have been worse – The Canes attack slowed down as is the case when it comes to score effects (have we hammered home the point that score effects had a lot to do with the comeback yet?) and had they kept playing the way they did those first ten minutes, this could have been even worse. Keeping that in mind, they did slow down, the Jets did right the ship a little and made a game of it in the second half and if not for some missed chances could have easily tied this game and salvaged a point or even a win.

We’ll let you decide if it’s a good thing they didn’t or not.