Sometimes you come out and manage a big victory against the league’s best team. Sometimes you go out the very next game and lose to one of it’s worst. That’s life in the NHL and as a Jets fan as the Jets five game winning streak ends in Los Angeles after a 4-1 loss to the Kings.

Thanks to Staples Center being an arena that has 18 different sports teams playing in it and thus they didn’t want anyone to touch the ice until the very last moment to make sure it’s only partly slush and not completely slush, the Jets hadn’t skated on ice since their Sunday evening contest against the Lightning. It showed in the first period as they seemed a couple of steps behind the Kings for the first 20 minutes.

A few thoughts on this goal…

That’s a bad pass by Trouba, or at the very least a very hopeful but ill-advised pass. Tanev was in zero position to receive it and doesn’t have the ability to adjust to getting that kind of pass (and this isn’t a knock on Tanev, a lot of players in the NHL would have issues with this pass attempt).

It would have been nice to see Hellebuyck play it better, but that high deflection also made a tough shot into a fluttering mess that made controlling it off a save almost impossible.

The Jets actually out-shot the Kings 11-10 in the first period and were credited with four high danger scoring chances opposed to the Kings zero, but hockey rarely has any interest in being “fair.”

Matthieu Perreault stay HOT!

Perreault’s fifth straight game with a goal got the Jets tied and for a moment it looked like the first period would be but a blip on the radar and the Jets would resume their dominating run.

But then things got a bit strange.

After giving up a Kings power play goal that was waved off because thirty seconds earlier they were slightly offside entering the zone which in the grand scheme of things had no consequence on the actual goal scored (oh NHL, you wacky insane league, never change) the Jets still found themselves down 2-1 almost halfway into the game as the Jets reverted back to Jets 2012 mode, complete with Connor Hellebuyck doing his best Ondrej Pavelec impression.

Yikes.

It was bad enough that Drew Doughty actually had a couple of “saves” in the period where he blocked Jets shots that for sure were going in past an out-of-position Jon Quick, but his shot fake goal almost felt like a dagger not even halfway through the game.

And if that goal didn’t feel like a dagger, the next Kings goal that came after a good two minutes of sustained Jets offensive pressure sure did.

Hockey is a dumb game sometimes.

No such third period magic for the Jets on this night as the Kings were content to throw the game back to the 90’s and trap away and throw sticks and bodies in front of virtually every Jets pass and shot attempt.

There is nothing in the way of highlights to show you in the third period because there were none. Well, save for the empty net goal the Kings had which barely qualifies…

The Jets power play was at best a pedestrian effort and looked uninspired. The team as a whole missed passes and missed shots. The one’s they did make the Kings seemed to get in the way of almost automatically. It was a bad game in an arena the Jets typically never do well in. (The Kings are now 10-1-4 against the Jets all-time at Staples Center)

It’s not like the Jets were brutal or anything of the sort in this game, they just weren’t any good. It happens. It’s frustrating that it does and it always seems to happen after a huge win like Winnipeg had on Sunday against Tampa, but that’s hockey for you.

Even the best teams aren’t going to be 100% every game for 82 games. Nashville lost tonight as well. Calgary also lost tonight as well. The Jets still have one game up on both of them.

Losses will always suck. This one – if there is such a thing – could qualify as an acceptable loss.

Forget it happened and move on to the next.

 

 

For Winnipeg: Mathieu Perreault – If nothing else, at least his goal scoring streak lives on. One bright light in an otherwise bleak game.

For Los Angeles: Austin Wagner – Can see why Kings fans are so high on the 21 year old rookie. He has all kinds of speed to burn and a set of hands that provide a nice scoring touch as they did tonight with two goals.