JNGD.S8.G62 Recap: Morrissey Injury Is Salt In The Wound That Is A Jets 4-1 Loss
5 years ago
What happened in Vegas actually stayed in Vegas.
After a strong game against the Golden Knights on Friday, the Jets were back to their disappointing ways on Sunday night as the dropped a 4-1 loss to a suddenly scrappy Arizona Coyotes club.
FIRST PERIOD
It starts off well for the Jets with Patrik Laine scoring on the power play for the third time in the last two games and the first line overall generating a couple of good chances early on, but it goes so horribly wrong after those first few good minutes as Jets defenders seem to be all over the place with their coverage and unable to execute proper zone exits. Sure enough the Coyotes tie things up three minutes after the Jets took the initial lead.
SECOND PERIOD
More of the same from the first period. The Jets actually do get a little better in the middle of the period, but the Coyotes not only out-shoot and out-chance the Jets, but they pick up two more goals in the period, the first goal was thanks to Ben Chiarot.
No really, Ben Chiarot kicked the puck into the Jets goal.
The second Coyotes goal of the period comes as a result of poor communication on the ice, a bad pinch (or something, I have no idea what Kulikov was doing there) and some severe back-pedal play from Tyler Myers.
The real kick in the teeth though for the Jets and their fans is what happened to Josh Morrissey as a seemingly innocent looking rub out along the boards saw the Jets best defenseman make a direct line for the dressing room while holding his arm.
No word on how severe the injury is, but it looks bad.
THIRD PERIOD
The third is a bit of an improvement as the Jets to out-shoot the Coyotes 17-6 and have the lion’s share of puck possession especially in the latter half of the period. Darcy Kuemper though stands tall for the Coyotes and ends up making 34 saves for the Arizona victory.
THE GOOD…
- Those Coyotes kachina jerseys are so sweet looking and they really should just go back to those full time.
- Laine scoring two games in a row and this time in a five on five setting. If nothing else tonight, that’s a big positive and something to make Jets fans smile.
- I don’t know if we can qualify the third period the Jets had as “good” but it was a marked improvement even if was boosted by some score effects. The Jets doubled up the Coyotes in shots and if not for Darcy Kuemper could have made a game of it. Natural Stat Trick has the 5v5 scoring chances and high danger chances even in that last period of play (6-6 and 2-2) but it sure felt like the Jets were better at least for one period. Of course, one good period isn’t going to cut it.
THE BAD…
- Jets defending in their own zone was awful almost all night and it was made worse by the fact that the Jets simply couldn’t complete passes out of their zone. There were actually times they probably could have skated the puck out but didn’t and given that it was early on we could see they were having issues with puck handling, I’m not sure why they didn’t.
- The puck off the head to Brandon Tanev which he somehow was able to shake off and get back into the game. I am at this point convinced that Tanev could literally lose an arm on the ice and he’d only miss one, maybe two shifts at most only because it would take that long to apply all the bandages needed.
- He had no real help in front of him for the first two periods, but Laurent Brossoit wasn’t exactly filling me with a whole lot of confidence tonight. He was a couple of posts and a crossbar away from giving up five goals in the first two periods.
- This heat map was ugly after two periods, but we’ll just give it “bad” tonight because again that third period was a bit of a bounce back for the Jets. The frustrating part is this comes one game after the Jets did really well against a Vegas team that always makes a habit to drive and attack the opposing net. The Coyotes offense I’d suggest doesn’t attack as well as the Golden Knights, and yet tonight they handed the Jets defense their lunch in the slot area and around Brossoit. Maybe this should have remained in the ugly side of things after all.
THE UGLY…
- JOSH MORRISSEY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
- The first period.
- The second period.
- Ben Chirot had the roughest of nights. He handled the puck like a grenade, kicked pucks into his own net and got dragged into taking a very foolish and selfish penalty at a time when the Jets really needed some positive momentum to go their way.
- Let’s be honest, the Jets defense as an entire group wasn’t very good for most of that game and a lot of the blame can be directed at their decisions with the puck and passing. It was downright awful. Even Trouba and Morrissey struggled to make tape to tape passes.
- All of us that stayed up to watch this game on Monday morning. It wasn’t quite a late night west coast start, but thanks to the Shane Doan jersey retirement ceremony the start was about 45 minutes after the scheduled start time.
THE BOXSCORE
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