A crazy second period where the @Winnipeg Jets defense made a couple of critical errors and @Connor Hellebuyck wasn’t able to save the day as he has over the last three weeks doomed the Jets to a 7-4 loss in Anaheim against the Ducks.

For once the Jets started the game on time and looked good early on getting out to a quick 5-0 shots lead in the first five minutes of play, but more importantly a 1-0 lead on the scoreboard thanks to @Nikolaj Ehlers.

The Ducks tied things up on the first of a handful of Jets miscues as the Jets forwards are a little slow to get back into the zone and the jets defense backs off a little too much, giving @Cam Fowler all kinds of time and space to even things up.

The Ducks weren’t exactly good in their own end of the ice either though as they coughed up the puck multiple times leading to a number of Jets scoring chances, one of which was capitalized on by @Blake Wheeler.

Despite the good start, the Ducks end up leading the period in shots as the Jets found themselves trapped in their own end for lengths at a time and gave up multiple chances.

Defense for both clubs continued to be very suspect in the middle frame, but it was a goal right off the faceoff that was probably a little bit more on Hellebuyck than it was poor defense that tied things back up again.

Anaheim then took the lead for the first time of the night about six minutes later as @Adam Henrique had a beautiful tip-in play of a @Jakob Silfverberg shot.

Less than a minute later, the Jets tied the game again with Ehlers’ second goal of the game which again was a product of some poor Ducks defending.

Crazy right? Only it got crazier as the Ducks scored a minute after the Jets had tied it when @Josh Mahura smartly took advantage of a really bad line change by the Jets and got the puck quickly up to @Troy Terry who had no one else around to stop him from going one on one and beating Hellebuyck.

And then 1:10 after Terry’s goal, the Ducks got another somewhat fortunate goal as @Nicolas Deslauriers’ original shot was stopped by Hellebuyck, but poor rebound control and a poor box out effort from @Tucker Poolman resulted in @Derek Grant being able to crash the net and end up getting a hip on the puck to help guide it into the net.

5-3 Ducks less than halfway through the game and Hellebuyck’s night was done allowing five goals on 18 shots against. To be fair this wasn’t all on Helle and may have just as easily been a mercy pull as the Jets defense continued to allow the Ducks free entry into the slot area and were being out-skated by the Ducks forwards by quite a bit.

After five goals in the first 9:10 seconds of the period, both teams finally found some decent defensive footing and with the Jets down two goals, as you can imagine score effects came into play early as the Ducks looked to just be smarter and make safe plays in their own end of the ice and not push for more offense. Two Ducks penaltied in the back half of the second period also helped the Jets gain a little more momentum on offense, but the power play remained scoreless.

Hooray for more score effects as the Jets continued to tack up shots on John Gibson, out-shooting the Ducks 18-6 in the final period.

The only issue with that is the Jets shots came from distance with the Ducks doing a solid job of not allowing much around the net area and clearing away any second chance opportunities. As it is the Ducks actually had more high danger scoring chances (shots from the immediate triangle area in front of the net) than the Jets did in the third 4-1.

Winnipeg did get within a goal as @Bryan Little continued his scoring ways with a puck that might have deflected off a Ducks stick and fooled Gibson.

But that was all the Jets could manage for offense as scored ten minutes later to salt the game away for good.

@Carter Rowney wasn’t done with that goal however as he also added one more empty net goal for good measure.

Despite the Jets putting 40 shots on Gibson and the Ducks, it should be noted that the Jets struggled to get any real in-close chances as the game’s heat map revealed.

The Jets defense wasn’t really any different than it has been over this first month of the season, the biggest difference in this game was that Connor Hellebuyck wasn’t able to stand on his head and provide the heroics the Jets have needed to win these games. Meanwhile the Jets offense does get 40 shots, but most were from distance and were of no real threat to a goalie as good as John Gibson.

I really liked @Jack Roslovic’s hustle early in the game and he looked really good with Nik Ehlers who is getting to be a regular in these player of the game discussions. Kyle Connor had nine shots on goal which was pretty good, but pretty much all of them were right at Gibson and only one of those shots was taken within 20 feet of the Ducks goal.

The Jets thankfully get a couple of days between games which hopefully means a healthy @Patrik Laine and rested up Jets squad as they take on the San Jose Sharks. Puck drop on Friday night will be at 9:30 PM and the game will be on TSN 3 and TSN 1290