Jets Nation Recap: Shot Down In Flames

You would have thought the prospect of playoffs slipping away combined with one of the hottest team’s in the league coming in for the final game of a home stand would have the Jets fired up from opening puck drop.

You would have thought wrong.

The Flames win in a 3-0 laugher that was only funny for them. The rest of the MTS Center was too busy either booing or staying more silent than they’ve ever been in the last six seasons as we continue to find new levels of rock bottom.

The Jets did show some signs of life in the first part in each of the first two periods, but it was nothing Brian Elliot and the Flames couldn’t handle as none of the Jets early chances would have likely fallen under the “high danger” category. Give the Flames credit for playing a very good road game in that they let the Jets come out with a bit of jump, weather the storm a little then impose their will in the later halves of the first two periods.

In both cases, any slight momentum the Jets may have had was stopped by poor special teams. The first period saw the Flames take a lead off a power play goal in their first attempt with the man advantage.

The second period saw the Flames take a 2-0 lead after Ben Chiarot took a double minor for high sticking. The Jets killed the first two minutes but sloppy play to clear the zone and looking lost around their net led to Michael Frolik’s 15th goal of the season because Jets fans somehow weren’t feeling bad enough about the entire situation, so a former-Jet had to score.

And while you could argue that the first two periods saw at least a little work from the Jets, the third period didn’t see any effort at all from the Jets as a third Flames goal three minutes in sealed their fate. From there the Flames were content to play a 4-1 defensive zone and the Jets were content to just go through the motions for a second game in a row.

Special teams is a disaster for this club but when your leading goal scorer (that would be Laine of course) only plays 2:16 while a player with 21 fewer goals (that would be Adam Lowry) gets 3:22 of power play ice time, it’s tough to argue that the issues the team has on the power play aren’t self inflicted.

Of course we could also talk about way their power play is set up and how stationary and predictable it is. It’s so predictable that the best scoring chances each time the Jets had a man advantage belonged to the Flames.

The penalty kill isn’t much better and that’s compounded by the fact that the Jets continue to take bad, undisciplined stick infractions that can be easily avoided by simple things like carrying sticks low, skating a bit more and not coasting.

Don’t be thrown off by the fact the Jets out-shot and out chanced the Flames, or had a better face off percentage than the Flames. Those can be explained by “score effects” and that the concept of winning faceoffs being overly important to a team’s success is actually overrated.

Tonight was just more of the same mistakes and laziness that has been a hallmark of the Jets for multiple seasons now.

Meanwhile Connor Hellebuyck was average. Average to the tune of an .897 save percentage. Again this isn’t a loss you can put on his shoulders completely, but that third goal against which should have been a routine save 9.9 times out of 10 sucked whatever faint life there might have been.

If you had to drag at least one positive out of this game, it was the play and level of desire of play from Jacob Trouba who is by far the Jets best defenseman and we can only hope Jets management has taken notice and plans to take care of him come July 1.

The Jets aren’t mathematically eliminated yet, but this loss combined with a Blues win tonight puts them nine points out of a playoff spot.

Time to fire up the tanks.