FRIESEN: Jets nod off for six minutes against Avs, pay the price
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Published Apr 24, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 4 minute read
Before Tuesday’s tilt with Colorado, Winnipeg Jets coach Rick Bowness, talking about the 8:45 p.m. start time, joked about having a nap on the bench during the game.
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Hours later his team went out and did just that.
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In good shape with a 2-1 lead past the middle mark of the second period, the Jets plopped their heads on the proverbial pillow and curled up into a ball.
By the time they’d pull on their pajamas for real, they’d dropped a 5-2 decision, evening the series at a game apiece as it moves to Denver.
Three Colorado goals in the last six minutes of the second period turned what could have been such a sweet dream into a nightmare.
Inches from a 3-1 lead – Kyle Connor rang a shot off the goal post, sending play the other way – the Jets instead saw Artturi Lehkonen’s deflection tie it.
No problem, no panic, right? Bowness’s crew hadn’t been nearly as loose as it was in Game 1.
What came next can best be described as a recurring nightmare from Connor Hellebuyck’s past.
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Out to play the puck, the Jets goalie, his stick checked just enough by Yakov Trenin, whiffed on it and the ensuing scramble saw Zach Parise put it into the open net.
It was the kind of misplay we haven’t seen from Hellebuyck in a few years, and it seemed to rattle his teammates.
“It can, but we did a good job of realizing that’s a fluky one,” Connor said. “How many times Connor goes back and plays the puck like that and it’s bang-bang out, no problem. Our forwards can do a bit better job picking the forwards coming in, too. It’s a team effort there, but at the same time that’s one of those you just brush off. You know you’re playing good at this point. Hopefully you follow up on the next shift.”
Problem is their earlier mojo vanished, and now they were handling pucks like they were half asleep.
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They reached the REM stage at the worst possible time.
With the period winding down, Avs defenceman Josh Manson slid from the penalty box to get behind everybody for the backbreaking fourth goal with just seven seconds to go.
“We didn’t forget about him,” Bowness said. “But it’s just we turned the puck over, we lost the battle on the boards. He’s on that side of the ice … you can’t catch him. It was just unfortunate timing and they took advantage of it.”
Manson is no Nate MacKinnon, but he finished like the Avs superstar, tucking it under Hellebuyck’s pad.
That made it five periods of playoff hockey and 10 goals against the likely Vezina Trophy winner, a tidy 2.00 average for the series – per period.
If you had that on your Bingo card, turn it in for a hefty payoff.
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Hellebuyck had looked dialled in until the dam broke in the second, as did the team in front of him.
There still remained an entire 20 minutes to fight back, but their bed was made.
Instead of being wrapped in the blanket of a 2-0 series lead, they’ve lost home-ice advantage, squandering the energy of a whiteout crowd.
They’ll fly to Colorado early Wednesday afternoon after counting sheep for half the night.
The Avs will have slept much better in the knowledge that Game 1 goat Alexandar Georgiev, their beleaguered goalie, managed to pull himself together after Sunday’s seven-goal disaster.
“It stings,” Connor said. “You never like losing, let alone a home game. I’m sure they’re happy with the split. At the same time, we’ve got to respond. We’ve got to dictate that play going into their barn. It’s about everyone in here trying to respond.”
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The good news for the Jets: this was more the kind of game they expected and wanted.
The bad: they still aren’t generating as much against Georgiev as the Avs are against Hellebuyck.
“I don’t think we had too much sustained zone time,” Connor said, and his coach agreed.
“We don’t get our D involved enough,” Bowness said. “They’re throwing a lot of pucks in there, just throwing them at the net. We’re not getting enough of that. We can spend more time in their zone and the only way we’re going to do that is to win some battles low and get our defence more involved.
“And we’re still passing up chances. We have to fix that. We can tell them all we want, ‘Shoot the puck, shoot the puck.’ There has to be a commitment to get more pucks on the net.”
Instead of being in control, it feels like the Jets are still searching for parts of their game. Or at least, for something closer to a 60-minute game.
They’ll have to find it away from home, against a team that won more home games than anybody in the NHL this season.
They’ll also have two days to sleep on it.
[email protected] X: @friesensunmedia
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