The Nik Ehlers hat trick and the 41 Connor Hellebuyck saves were beautiful sights for Jets fans on Thursday night. The rest of the game, not so much.

And sure, it looked ugly tonight, but come April when we look at the final points tally, the two points the Jets earned tonight in San Jose with a 5-3 win over the Sharks will look the same as every other point they’ve earned through the season.

The first frame gets crazy almost instantly as both teams exchange goals early after both teams took slashing penalties on consecutive plays to give us some four on four hockey to open things up.

Buff’s strip of Brent Burns was a thing of beauty and he’s probably fortunate as it was the equally lumbering Burns chasing after him as he broke in alone.

The Kane goal meanwhile may have been a product of Connor Hellebuyck respecting the pass a little too much as it sure seemed like he was waiting for Evander to dish off to Erik Karlsson.

The Sharks made it 2-1 on a power play goal with some heavy traffic in front of the Jets net after Tyler Myers took a rather weak interference penalty.

The crazy period wasn’t even close to done yet as the Jets take advantage of a crazy bounce from a Blake Wheeler dump-in and the always speedy Nik Ehlers of course is the one finishing the opportunistic play off.

With an injury to Adam Lowry going into tonight’s game, Nic Petan got a shot to get back into the lineup and centered a fourth line between Mason Appleton and Brendan Lemieux and Petan was able to show off his slick passing skills that we’ve seen quite often in his time with the AHL. Hopefully it caught the eyes of the Jets coaching staff as well as Mason Appleton finally gets his first NHL goal.

The first period ends 3-2 for the Jets and with the Jets holding a 12-10 edge in shots as it looked like an improved team from what we saw in Los Angeles.

Strike that last comment from the record. The Jets actually played worse in tonight’s second period than they did the entire game against Los Angeles the night prior. Dare I say the second period against San Jose would rival the Jets first period “effort” last month in Calgary where they fell behind 5-1.

The Jets a little over past the halfway point of the second period were being out-shot 18-3 as the Sharks flat out dominated a tired looking Jets club at five on five play.

The game only remained in favor of the Jets thanks to the play of Connor Hellebuyck who made a series of tough key saves.

Funny enough, the Jets in the last five minutes of play started to actually get their collective stuff together and generated a few scoring chances, but as it always seems to be in hockey, just as the Jets started to look like an actual decent hockey team on the ice, the Sharks took advantage of the one bad mistake that Connor Hellebuyck made in the period and evened things up.

Hockey is such a stupid sport sometimes.

The third wasn’t much better for the Jets. Some would argue it was maybe even worse.. The Jets didn’t get their fourth shot on goal until two minutes left in the third period and only after the Sharks had collected 10.

Again, funny thing about hockey… It’s not fair. Ever.

As the third period dragged on both teams played as a slightly slower pace – even the Sharks as they carried most of the play didn’t seem to do anything overly aggressive to try and take the lead. Perhaps out of fear of making a mistake like the one you just witnessed above.

The game ends almost fittingly, with the Jets somehow inexplicably with a lead and Nik Ehlers earning his fourth career hat trick in maybe the most redicluous way possible… Being taken down at the blueline.

Hockey is so stupid.

We love it.

 

 

For Winnipeg: Connor Hellebuyck – Yes, maybe the guy that got the hat trick should get player of the game, but Hellebuyck made 41 saves on the night and really that second period should have seen the Sharks take a two goal lead or more the way the Jets were playing. You know your team has been out-played thoroughly when you let in three goals and still end the night with a .932 save percentage.

For San Jose: Evander Kane – You don’t like it. I don’t like it. But the former Jet came out with an axe to grind and was on fire with a goal and assist and ten shots on the Winnipeg net.