JN Recap – “Triumph Of Character” For Jets In Win Over Blues

Many a fan, media person and likely member of the WInnipeg Jets had this game against the St. Louis Blues as a “must win” but saying those words with a slight bit of resignation. Kind of like “It’s a ‘must win’ just to have the chance to play in a few more ‘must wins’ before we start having any real hope that the ‘must win’ games might hold playoff promise.

But against that backdrop, the Jets buckled down with some solid defensive play, steady offense that was much stronger than the final score indicated and most important of all skated away with a big 3-0 win over the team they are directly behind for the final wild card playoff spot.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first, the Blues were not very good in this one and have now dropped five in a row. Carter Hutton was fantastic in goal for the Blues and held his team in it as long as possible. The Blues defense wasn’t awful but combined with a lethargic Blues offense they offered very little in the way of push back save for the first five minutes of the third period where it looked like they may have found a next gear for a little while before getting outworked by the Jets again.

That said, this was maybe the most complete 60 minute efforts the Jets have had all season. If it’s not the best they’ve had all season, it’s in the top three. The puck posession game was good, they hustled and won the majority of puck battles along the boards, they were (mostly) smart with zone exits and limited turnovers.

Good to have Jacob Trouba back. The last three games proved how important he is at this point and how much he stabilizes a still rather weak group of Jets defensemen. Trouba and Morrisey are so very good together and at this point I think you can already pencil them in as the Jets top pair for next season.

Connor Hellebuyck – after a disaster of a game earlier this week – rebounded nicely with a 29 save shutout. He didn’t get caught being overly scrambly, he trusted his defense a little more and didn’t try to cheat off of puck carriers as much as he did against the Wild which has been getting him in all kinds of trouble this season. Maybe even more notable to some was he did have a couple of “timely saves” off of odd-man rushes against where a goal against would have felt like a back breaker considering how Hutton was playing at the other end. It’ll be interesting to see if Maurice runs with him again tomorrow night against Colorado.

Let’s talk about the power play for a moment because while it did score once and probably could have had more if not for the play of Hutton, it’s hard to overlook going 1 for 5 because the Jets two top scorers – Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine – saw just 3:55 and 3:40 (respectively) of ice time with the man advantage. Marko Dano had as much PP time as Scheifele. Adam Lowry had 4:38. Not that having Lowry or Dano on the ice for the power play is a bad idea, but having them on the ice MORE than your two leading scorers is insanity. The upper levels of the MTS started chanting for Laine on the power play in the third period and those chants hopefully continue until Maurice realizes the error of his coaching ways.