JN Recap – It’s All Bad (Except For The Few Minutes It Isn’t But It Still Is Even Then)

48 hours ago, the Jets were coming into the weekend thinking a couple of strong games would keep them right in the thick of the playoff race.

Now coming off a second loss in a row in as many nights – this time a 4-1 dropped game to the Tampa Bay Lightning – that faint sound you hear in the distance may not be the roar of playoff crowds, but the rumble of another tank effort… 

A night after laying an egg against the Chicago Blackhawks, you would have thought the Winnipeg Jets would have come out the next night against the Tampa Bay Lightning with more desperation in their game as they needed to start stringing some wins together to keep themselves alive in any kind of playoff race.

You would have thought that and for the first five minutes of the game and the last five minutes, you would have been correct. Sadly the 50 minutes or so in-between was almost as bad if not worse than the effort and play they had against Chicago.

Losing Toby Enstrom very early in the game (about two minutes in in fact) due to injury didn’t help, but if there is a silver lining it’s that we got a clear demonstration of how much worse the Jets defense is without the favorite whipping boy of many Jets fans. Without Toby, the Jets leaned heavily on Ben Chiarot giving him 26 plus minutes of ice time which isn’t good for anyone involved except the Lightning.

Speaking of players who got a LOT more ice time than what they should get… Adam Lowry racked up 18:39 of ice time and Matthieu Perreault got 18:58 which put them both ahead of Bryan Little and sandwiched Mark Scheifele’s ice time of 18:40) … Why PoMo continues to have a love affair with these guys is anyone’s guess. Certainly they are good players and should be north of 12 or 13 minutes a game, but that’s 1st line forward levels of ice time and neither of them are close to that.

The most frustrating thing about Lowry getting that much ice time? One quick look at the stats from this game shows that he was credited with three giveaways and ZERO SHOTS. He was also 7 and 13 in the faceoff dot (35%) .. What is Paul Maurice even doing?

Connor Hellebuyck got the start again and he was ok, but the facts are he also allowed three goals in a game again and that 3rd goal against was one he especially should have gotten.

But at this point the goaltending is but one issue and anyone who looks at Hellebuyck or even Ondrej Pavelec as the problem is completely overlooking that this team is soft on the puck, can’t win 50-50 battles along the boards and is prone to way too many turnovers.

When the Jets *do* manage to get any pressure in the offensive zone, they are trying to make the perfect pass or perfect shot far too often which leads to a puck deflected away from danger or a shot that goes wide of the net and ultimately a turnover with the puck going back the other way.