Jets Nation Recap: Blackhawks Outlast Jets 3-1

Sometimes a team puts forth a pretty good effort and it just isn’t enough as the opposing team does a little bit more to win a game.

Such was the fate of the Winnipeg Jets Sunday afternoon as they dropped a 3-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks.

It was a bit of a back and forth affair as the two teams took turns controlling play for stretched of time. The Jets came out well but lost momentum when Mark Scheifele took an interference penaty that seemed to give the Hawks a boost.

It had appeared as though the Hawks scored after a goal mouth scramble, but it was ruled that Marcus Kruger kicked the puck (or maybe more appropriately had the puck go off his skate which was moving forward at the time) and thus the goal was disallowed.

Minutes later Marian Hossa did score after out-working Bryan Little in front of the goal.

The second period was much better for the Jets and they outshot the Hawks 12 to 9 and got the game tied up after a Tobias Enstrom made a nice play to set up Chris Thorburn in front of the net. Chris’ shot quickly popped in and out of the net and was originally ruled no goal, and it took a few minutes of play an a TV break before a review of the play corrected the missed call.

The third period saw the Hawks buzz the Jets early and get a quick goal off a scramble play where Teravainen was able to blast a shot past Hutch who didn’t seem quite square to the shooter or holding the post.

From there it was a solid effort by the Blackhawks to lock things down. They played safe, fundamental hockey and didn’t give the Jets much room to create any good scoring chances. Any shots the Jets did have were handled easily by Corey Crawford.

The Jets didn’t play horribly, but neither did the Hawks and the Hawks played just a tiny bit better. Sometimes that just happens.

A Better Fate Deserved: Poor Hutch. Stopping 29 of 31 shots for a .935 save percentage should be enough to win a game, but Crawford was every bit his equal on the other side of the ice and the two goals that did go in past him were off of scrambles and broken coverage. This isn’t a result you can pin on him.

Buff Bumped: We’re not sure if Dustin Byfuglien owes Bryan Bickell money, but Bickell had it out for Buff in the first period catching him with two big hits – the second causing a bit of a debate on it’s legality as it caught Buff not looking and with a shoulder being planted into the head of Buff. It didn’t seem to stop Buff though as he led all players with six shots.

That’s Gotta Be Kane: Yes Kane did extend his points streak to 22 games with an assist on the empty net goal. He passed Bobby Hull for the Hawks record. The best thing I can say about it is that I can’t think of two people who probably deserve to be linked together more than those two, can you? Let’s move on.

C+/- is shot attempt differential; Fen+/- is shot attempt differential minus blocked shots; iSC is individual scoring chances; OZS is percentage of offensive zone starts relative to offensive and defensive. 

(The following charts are courtesy War-On-Ice.comhttp://war-on-ice.com/game1.html?seasongcode=2015201620399)

Shot attempt chart for all minutes:

Shot location for all minutes: