Jets Nation Recap: Jets Burned 4-1 In Calgary

No debate if this was a moral victory or not. The Jets started off ugly falling behind in the first period yet again and could never muster any real offense as they drop a 4-1 loss to the Calgary Flames.

Ugh. Let’s just power through this recap and get on with happier holiday thoughts because the Jets aren’t providing much jolly lately.

In reality, tonight’s game in Calgary was just like the game the previous night in Edmonton except the Flames have better defense and thus didn’t allow the Jets to turn their net into a shooting gallery, and that the Jets reverted back to taking some very dumb penalties.

Other than that, it was pretty much the same game. The Jets fell behind 2-0 halfway into the first period again as Johnny Gaudreau scored on the power play and Joe Colborne tipped home a Mark Giordano shot from the blue line in a period that was dominated by the Flames from almost start to finish.

We say “almost” because in the last ten seconds of the period the Flames defense got caught cheating and on an odd man rush back the other way, Blake Wheeler passed the puck to a trailing Tyler Myers who zipped the puck past an otherwise very good Kari Ramo to make the score 2-1.

That was as close as the Jets got all night though really. Winnipeg at least played the Flames more even, but the Flames had a very workman-like second and third period to lock the game down and struck with the Gaudreau dagger late in the third period that couldn’t have gone more wrong for Mark Scheifele if it had been done a hundred times over.

What’s so special about them?  Hate to sound like a broken record but the Jets special teams is not doing this club any favors. They allowed a power play goal on five tries against to a team that RANKS 30TH IN THE NHL. Of course they didn’t score a power play goal but they only had the one power play and you can pretty much chalk that up to the Jets just merely going through the motions instead of trying to generate real chances and use their speed to force Calgary into taking penalties.

Dumb and dumber:  Speaking of taking penalties, the Jets were back to their tricks of not only taking pointless stick infractions, but also taking dumb penalties. The sequence of Stuart’s can-opener trip followed by Trouba’s selfish cross check away from the puck is the ultimate example of what this team has been doing to itself and will keep doing until Paul Maurice starts hammering down on players who do this. We’re not just talking sending a struggling 2nd year player to the AHL or the captain to the 3rd line for a period, we’re talking long stays in the press box.. *sigh* It’s a dream that will never happen right?

Hutch still struggling:  He’s had worse starts on the road lately, but tonight wasn’t much better for Michael Hutchinson. .906 save percentage and that second Gaudreau goal against him is one of the “goalie needs to make a clutch save” moments. There are PLENTY of other things wrong with the Jets that are more pressing, but Hutch’s sub-par play isn’t helping matters.

YOUR HOT TAEKS

CHARTS AND STUFF

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.com)

Shot attempt chart for all minutes:

Shot location for all minutes: