Jets Nation Recap: Jets Forget There Is A 3rd Period, Lose 4-3 In OT

Remember last season during the playoffs (Oiler fans checking on this recap may have to look up what the word “playoffs” means since it’s been so long) when the Jets would take a lead into the 3rd period and we Jets fans were happy and hopeful the team could simply lock it down for 20 more minutes and bring home a win only to see victory cruelly ripped away from the Jets and us fans much like the Oilers cruelly ripped the first overall pick away from the helpless Buffalo Sabres?

That sucked didn’t it?

Well, that brings me to Friday night’s preseason contest against the Edmonton Oilers.

In a bit of role reversal, the Jets played more of an NHL resembling lineup Friday night as opposed to who they used Wednesday while the Oilers trotted out more of an AHL looking group and for the first couple of periods the game played out pretty much how everyone expected. The Jets did take a handful of undisciplined stick penalties (6 of the 8 minor penalties in the game were stick infractions) which helped give the Oilers a fair shot at staying in the game and wasn’t unlike the previous meeting two days ago when he roles were reversed.

Still in the second period the Jets started clicking on offense with a tipped in goal by JC Lipon off a nice pass from Chase De Leo, a Ben Chariot wrist shot from the point for his second goal in as many games and an Andrew Copp goal that came off a scramble created by a Nic Petan shot from the wing and some grinding by Chris Thorburn.

3-0 after 2 periods against an Oilers lineup that looked like an AHL roster? Looks like we have our first exhibition win of the season right?

Nope. Disaster struck in the form of an innocent tweet.

I’m not saying my single tweet made around the 10 minute mark of the 3rd period with the Jets still up 3-0 is the reason things fell apart for them the next four minutes or so, but it probably didn’t help right?

The Oilers finally made the Jets play for careless penalties when Anton Lander scored on the power play to make it 3-1. Lauri Korpikoski scored a minute after that after a sweet looking deflection that Pavelec had zero time to react to.  Rob Klinkhammer tied things up a minute and a half or so after that while short handed.

Blake Wheeler took a tripping penalty in the 3 on 3 overtime which made it a 4 on 3 powerplay and while the Jets did kill the penalty, the Oilers scored seconds after the penalty ended to complete the comeback.

And I’m never tweeting another nice thing about Pavelec ever again.

Pavelectric? I stand by original statement however because for two and a half periods Ondrej Pavelec *did* look pretty good in net for the Jets. The original plan as we were all led to believe was that Pavs would play the first two periods, then Connor Hellebuyck was going to see action in the third, but Pavs had been playing well enough for coach Paul Maurice to call an audible and ride Ondrej out for the 3rd. This also isn’t the first time we’ve seen a collapse like this while Pavs has been in the net. Love or hate his game all you want, you can’t deny that he does have issues when it comes to his ability to lock down games and help maintain leads even when the defense in front of him falters. (There is after all a reason I feared I was jinxing things.)

Special teams again not special: Allowed a power play goal against and went 0 for 5 on the powerplay with a short handed goal given up. Not many teams will win games with that formula. It did look better at times with higher caliber players than the previous game, but it does have to be a bit of a growing concern for PoMo.

Noteable Jets: Andrew Copp made a solid bid for the role of 4th line center to start the season and he has steadily gotten better.  –  Not that he was bad last year, but Ben Chariot seems even more comfortable moving the puck this year. Not that we should expect that kind of goal production from him mind you.  –  Mark Stuart and Jacob Trouba are still a decent pair mostly thanks to Trouba. Stuart still has that annoying habit of pinching at the wrong time or trying to throw a big open ice hit that take him out of position. Old habits die hard I suppose.

Shot attempt chart for all minutes:

Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory!