Another slow start, another poor overall game, but the Jets at least found another level of compete, took advantage of some Caps miscues and salvaged a loser point against Washington in a 4-3 shootout loss on Tuesday night.

Before we even got to the pre-game skate, this team found a way to upset us…

Look, I don’t believe in ‘curses’ ok? They are silly, and irrational and are a weak cover up for poor decisions and poor play. That said, this season has been cursed. Also, Sami Niku himself may be cursed as tonight was the fourth time this season he’s had to miss playing time due to an injury. Also being that this was before the pre-game skate, it was suspected he was hurt during the little soccer dribbling work out some players do before hitting the ice which A: I’m not surprised doesn’t happen more and B: couldn’t they just stretc out their limbs in more traditional, non potential to run into walls and pull muscles kind of way?

Anyway, the game… Which was just messed up in so many ways.

Of course the Jets fell behind less than two minutes in and of course it was @Alexander Ovechkin who scored the first goal because of all the other 30 teams in the NHL, Ovi has scored the most against the Atlanta Thrashers / Winnipeg Jets franchise.

They had an absolutely brutal first period as they ended up trailing 2-0, and a little over half way into the third period fell behind 0-3 and at that point I think it was safe to say most Jets fans were done. At the start of the second, Paul Maurice brought out his line blender – yet again – and in his ever infinite wisdom @Patrik Laine on the third line with @Nikolaj Ehlers and @Cody Eakin while @Kyle Connor was put with @Blake Wheeler and @Mark Scheifele and it didn’t seem to yield any worthwhile results.

Sure, Ehlers scored late in the third to make it a 3-1 game on a goal that was more about the brutal errors made by the Caps than anything else…

But that felt like a token “at least they aren’t going to be shutout for the game” type goal because even though they had out-shot the Capitals 17-12 in the second, nothing the Jets did in the first 40 minutes of play suggested a team that could do anything worthwhile in the game.

Make that 48 minutes because in the first eight minutes of the third, the Jets hadn’t even managed a shot on the Caps net even with a power play opportunity.

And then at 8:39, shortly after a Capitals power play that didn’t score to put the game away, the first Jets shot of the period was a Kyle Connor breakaway..

A one goal deficit in a game where the Jets have barely earned their shots let alone an outside shot at getting back in the game and still it felt do-able because sometimes that’s just how hockey is and because the Jets finally started finding ways to win puck battles, force the Caps to the outside of the offensive zone and with 3:01 left in the game, the Jets again got lucky, but it was the best kind of luck – the kind generated from a hard driving play.

The overtime was fast and frantic as it always seems to be, but didn’t result in anything decisive. Washington prevails in the extended shootout,

But that the Jets got a point out of this game feels like a massive steal. It’s hard to understate how bad the Jets were in this game for about 50 minutes of it and still somehow hung around enough and got fortunate enough to get a result out of it.

 

Fell behind early and played brutal for more than two periods before getting their act together, winning some puck battles and at least making a game of it. It’s always a shame when a game ends with a random skills competition, but in many ways, it felt like more than the Jets deserved from the game to even get to that point.

 

Laurent Brossoit – Stopped 34 of 37 shots faced and in the first half of this game it could have easily been 4 or 5 to 0 for Washington if not for his work. It wasn’t just that the Caps were getting more shots, it was the quality and close range that they were getting them from. Brossoit gave the Jets a chance to get back in this one.

 

 

The Capitals and Jets get on planes and head north to Winnipeg where they’ll do this thing all over again, only inside the friendly confines of BMTSP. Puck drop is 7 PM Thursday with the game on TSN 3 and TSN 1290.