Granted it’s the second game of a back-to-back effort on the road, but no one could have imagined the Jets would have such a clunker effort against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night as they dropped a 5-1 loss.

I’m now being told that a lot of people imagined it happening as it was highly probable.

The only way to describe all three goals scored against the Jets in the first period would be “unfortunate.” The first was the oddest of them all as it deflected up and over and down the back of Eric Comrie, the second goal against was a bit of a broken play with some bad defending mixed in, and the third goal was just Comrie not sealing off his post properly. The Jets actually had an edge in shots which makes being down 3-0 after 20 that much more of a kick in the teeth.

Even worse is that Brandon Tanev leaves the game a little less than five minutes into the game as he took a bit of a slash to the hand area.

It’s a bit more of an even period as the Wild are content to just play a slow methodical grinding game and the Jets aren’t mustering any kind of speed or real emotion to press the issue. The Wild make it a 4-0 game at the halfway point of the game thanks to a perfectly placed shot by Joel Eriksson Ek. Winnipeg replies – finally – with a trio of shorthanded chances that finishes with a nice effort by Jacob Trouba to get them on the board.

Even with the Jets still leading in shots (they had a slight edge in the second period 9-8) it’s the Wild that have credit for more 5 v 5 scoring chances through two periods of play as per Natural Stat Trick 16-15.

The Jets again have an edge in shots and even got a slight edge in scoring chances in the final 20 minutes of play, but they just couldn’t beat Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk or for that matter really muster much against a Minnesota defense that did well to lock things down. The Wild score one more for a little more salt in the wound as they complete the 5-0 regular season sweep of the Jets by a 5-1 score.