(Note: With a new site always comes technical issues and glitches and tonight is one of them. Your Jets game recap is actually written by and brought to you by Jeremy Wiebe. Make sure you follow him on Twitter and tweet a GIF of a puppy at him, he likes those. – Art)

Game Notes:

• The first period was memorable to say the least. Evgeni Malkin and Blake Wheeler got into a scrap to set the tone for this one. It came off the heels of Malkin’s high hit on the Jets captain in Pittsburgh back on February 16. Immediately after, Chris Thorburn and Tom Sestito dropped the glove in an absolutely needless tilt. Hockey culture. It has to change at some point.
• There was actual hockey played in the opening frame and goals were scored. Shawn Matthias opened the scoring by performing a silky backhand move on Pens goalie Matt Murray. Pittsburgh answered 25 seconds later on a Nick Bonino tally but the Jets regained the on Nikolaj Ehlers laser. Pittsburgh responded as Malkin’s breakaway goal left the Jets defence bewildered. But the Jets got a late goal from Dustin Byfuglien to take the lead into intermission. It was a wild period indeed.
• The second turned out to be the Jets downfall. A somewhat questionable penalty call on Ben Chiarot followed by a Mathieu Perreault infraction, led to the Pens scoring 3 goals in 57 seconds to blow the game wide open. Chiarot’s penalty was iffy at best, but the Jets do themselves no favours when they react so poorly to adversity. Justin Schultz, Bonino and Malkin found the back of the net in those 57 seconds and Pittsburgh was on its way. Bonino completed the hat-trick late in the second. Jake Guentzel and Marko Dano rounded out the scoring in the third.
• Connor Hellebuyck didn’t have a great night, but he didn’t have much help either. 5 goals on 15 shots for a .667 save percentage won’t cut it in this league. Was Hellebuyck tired? Maybe. It was his 10th consecutive start. Michael Hutchinson did relieve Hellebuyck after the fifth goal but it is obvious that the coaches don’t trust Hutch. Goaltending will need to be addressed in the offseason.
• Special teams. Oh those hideous special teams. The Jets were 0/5 with the man advantage while Pittsburgh went 3/5 on the power play. Gee, I wonder if that affected the game. Bad special teams are on the coaching staff and Paul Maurice and company have plenty of questions to answer.
• Sestito made an impact for all the wrong reasons as he levelled Toby Enstrom with a vicious hit from behind. Enstrom didn’t return with an upper body injury while Sestito was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct. That Sestito was called up from the minors just for this game and the Jets played Thorburn instead of Nic Petan because Sestito was in the lineup shows how screwed up hockey culture is.
• Can we forget about the playoffs and focus on next year? This team isn’t making the postseason. Sad but the truth hurts.

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