JetsNation Recap – Whoops

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first.

Nik Ehlers shouldn’t have thrown the puck haphazardly to his own net like he did in the OT. Michael Hutchinson should have had his stick on the ice and been more prepared for anything to come his way given how close the puck was to the net. That play overall sucked.

With that out of the way, despite the 3-2 overtime loss to Colorado let’s enjoy the fact the Jets played a pretty solid road game in the back end of a back-to-back and got a point out of it.

It wasn’t pretty and the Jets did seem to be fatigued a lot of the game (back to backs in Colorado should be outlawed really) but they played a fairly smart, conservative game that relied on quick passes and puck movement to keep the pace of the game up against a surprisingly quick Avalanche team. Overall the Jets got out-played most of the game, so maybe the end result is more fair than we feel, but it wasn’t like the Jets were out-played by a gross margin.

The big news of the game was Jacob Trouba’s return and overall he was pretty good. He did suffer a few turnovers early in the game as could be expected from a guy who has to get aught up to actual game speed, but overall he was strong and saw a bunch of minutes. This is good news as Tyler Myers left the game in the 2nd intermission with a “lower body” injury so Trouba could be getting his wish of top four pairing minutes as soon as Sunday.

Nik Ehlers continued his points streak with a couple of sweet looking assists as did Mark Scheifele. Blake Wheeler scored his second in as many games. The Jets are at the very least getting consistent production from their top players so while there are a lot of other issues the team is facing, this isn’t one of them.

It’s unfortunate the last shot he faced wasn’t one he expected and ended up letting in because before that Hutchinson was pretty darn good and made at least five difficult stops through the game. You can blame him for that final goal against, but without his play in the first 60 minutes it doesn’t even get to overtime.

And yes, you can include that first goal against.. Sometimes a nice shot is a nice shot that you can only tip your helmet too..

Wheeler and Petan were the only ones with positive possession numbers and I think it’s safe to say Petan has earned a spot even when others get healthy. He saw some time on the 2nd line tonight and actually reminds me of a lite version of Bryan Little. Doesn’t do anything flashy or eye catching, just plays a steady game and rarely makes mistakes.

Tonight was kinda like this.. Only with Dano as the Avalanche and Johnson playing the role of the Jets…