Winnipeg Jets’ losing streak hits five games with 4-1 loss to Vegas – Winnipeg | Globalnews.ca
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For the tenth time in their last 11 meetings with the Vegas Golden Knights, the Winnipeg Jets came up on the wrong side of the ledger Thursday night, controlling much of the game but falling 4-1 for their fifth straight loss.
Ivan Barbashev scored the go-ahead goal to break a one-all deadlock with a little over five minutes remaining and Vegas padded their lead with a pair of empty-netters to sweep the three-game season series and give them a five-game point streak.
“In my mind we outplayed them and we did,” said Jets head coach Rick Bowness. “But we didn’t score. So, we’re not going to win until we start putting that puck in the net.”
“Obviously it sucks right now,” said Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers. “But I think last game we had a lot of good things and today we did a lot of really good things as well. I think we deserved better, but we’re definitely going in the right direction.”
Sean Monahan scored Winnipeg’s lone goal in the defeat.
Only moments before the game-winning goal, Nicolas Hague caught Vladislav Namestnikov with a high hit. Mark Scheifele immediately dropped his gloves to fight Hague. Hague was originally assessed a five-minute major penalty for an illegal check to the head, but it was dropped down to a two-minute minor after a video review. Scheifele received an instigator penalty, a fighting major and a 10-minute misconduct to end his night and nullify the power play.
“The referee explained to me that he didn’t raise his arm, that Vlady was low,” said Bowness. “So you live with their call. Whether you agree with it or disagree with it, it doesn’t matter. They made the call. They looked at it. Give them credit for that. So they call the major initially, so they can look at it, and if that’s their review and call, you live with it.”
The Jets carried the play for much of the night and outshot Vegas 30-13 over the final two periods. But once again their power play let them down as they were 0-for-5 on the man advantage and they’ve now gone 18 straight power plays without scoring a goal.
“Power play has got to be better,” said Monahan. “You get that many opportunities, you got to score a goal. But I don’t think we played terrible. A few costly mistakes, and I mean, we lose again.”
Winnipeg earned the game’s power play chance 6:37 into a physical first period but as has so often been the case since Gabriel Vilardi got hurt, the Jets came up empty and that would prove costly later in the first when the visitors would open the scoring.
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After the Jets turned the puck over at their own blueline, Pavel Dorofeyev missed the net but William Karlsson tracked down the rebound, got it back to Dorofeyev and this time he made no mistake, sniping one top-shelf to make it 1-0 with 4:04 to go in the first.
Vegas would earn their first power play look not long after but Winnipeg managed to kill it off.
The Golden Knights carried their lead and a 14-10 advantage in shots on goal into the middle frame but the Jets controlled the bulk of the second, tying the game 3:31 into the period.
Keegan Kolesar had the puck in his own end and was ready to skate up the ice before he tripped over Josh Morrissey’s stick without a penalty being called. He fell and the puck slid to the Jets at the blue line. Seconds later, Nikolaj Ehlers sent a shot on goal that was tipped en route by Monahan and floated over the shoulder of Logan Thompson.
A big reason why Winnipeg carried play in the second was the fact that they had three power play looks in the period. While they did not score on them, they had the puck in the Golden Knights’ end most of the time, an improvement on what they had been doing with the man advantage of late but still, three opportunities by the wayside as the teams entered the third tied at one.
Winnipeg outshot Vegas 15-6 in the second and stayed in charge for most of the third but the game changed with 8:37 to go.
The Jets still had their chances but on what seemed to be a fairly innocuous rush up the ice, the Golden Knights went ahead with 5:29 remaining. Anthony Mantha took the puck across the Jets’ blue line and chipped it to the slot where Barbashev took a whack at it with the backhand and sent it high over the right shoulder of Hellebuyck.
Winnipeg pulled the goalie with over two minutes left but they couldn’t mount a rally before Barbashev sealed the win with an empty netter. Jack Eichel added another empty net goal for good measure to make it a 4-1 final.
Thompson was great in net for Vegas, turning aside 39 of 40 shots while Hellebuyck made 23 saves in defeat.
Winnipeg’s next chance to get back in the win column comes Saturday night when they host the Senators. Puck drop is 6 p.m. with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB starting at 4 p.m.
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