Jets Nation Recap: Islanders Top Jets 4-3 In Overtime

The Jets managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as the gave up a goal with less than 30 seconds left in the 3rd to go into overtime and then gave up the game winner after a Brock Nielson shot deflected off the face of a back-checking Nik Ehlers and straight onto the stick of Kyle Okposo who then slammed the puck past Michael Hutchinson.

*sigh* Only 19 more of these games to go.

Again tonight was a case of the Jets being good… Just not good enough and not playing a complete 60 minutes. It certainly wasn’t as bad as the game against Florida, but there were still stretches where the Jets took turns looking every bit a team playing out the string of games and going through the motions.

Mark Scheifele gave the Jets the 1-0 lead in the first on the power play and a secondary Dustin Byfuglien assist meant his consecutive games point streak continued on for a seventh game in a row.

The good feelings were halted in the second period after Calvin de Haan scored a weak wrist shot that Hutchinson would have surely liked to have back. It didn’t help that the Jets – after a rather dominating first period – let the Islanders back into the game in the second.

The third period was a bit of a roller-coaster befitting of this current Jets season as a Shane Prince goal gave New York the lead and there was a lot of “here we go again” angst to be had. To the Jets credit though they continued to work hard and were rewarded with goals from Tyler Myers off a sweet Alex Burmistrov pass and then a second Scheifele goal with just over two minutes left in the game.

The Islanders tied things up with the goalie pulled in the last minute (Wait, teams are allowed to score when they pull the goalie? Do the Jets know this?) and then won it with the unfortunate deflection off of Ehlers’ face in overtime.

Maurice in the post-game interview stated that Ehlers should be fine. Maybe not the same for Anthony Peluso who crashed hard into the Islanders net in the first period and left with no movement in his right arm after a possible shoulder injury.

Offensive Fouls – The Jets continue to take penalties in the offensive zone and while you can argue the validity of a couple of them, there is no denying the Jets do have a reputation of taking them.. Thankfully this night the Jets had a pretty good penalty kill going as they killed all four times they were short hand.

WheEhlerSchief – We may as well start thinking about a better name for this line as 55-27-26 is a pretty formidable first line going right now. Here’s hoping this line is impressing enough to convince Paul Maurice that they should be kept together for next season as well.

Career Bests – Schiefele’s 16th and 17th goals are a career best for him. Matthew Perreault’s two assists to go up to 27 on the season are a career best for him.

Charts courtesy War-On-Ice.com