Jets can't win a Cup the way they're built
Stingy defence and regular-season success were nowhere to be found come playoff time
Regular-season success, firstround flop. Rinse and repeat.
For the second straight year, the Winnipeg Jets turned a modicum of accomplishment through 82 games into a heaping helping of underachievement when it mattered most.
Another series-opening win followed by a four-game boot out the door, this time by the Colorado Avalanche, this time on home ice.
Tuesday's 6-3 loss wasn't the embarrassingly meek exit of 12 months ago, but the result left the same feeling of failure that's permeated each of the last six seasons.
“Terrible,” is how defenceman Josh Morrissey described it. “Another year that feels like a missed opportunity.”
“It's going to be a long summer,” captain Adam Lowry added. “This one's going to sting for a while.”
This team remains stuck on one series win since reaching the 2018 Western Conference final.
Safe to conclude it's not built for the post-season?
The only thing the Jets can hang their hat on this time is the fact they looked like they cared as they went under.
“In two years, that's by far the best playoff game we've played,” is how head coach Rick Bowness saw the season's swan song, a far cry from the disgust he showed in the “no pushback” finale of 2023.
In the next breath, he asked the obvious followup himself.
“Where was that in the first four games? That's a question we're going to have to answer ourselves over the course of the summer. But we're way ahead of where we were at this point last year when we lost. Way ahead.”
If having a team that's far more united and didn't collectively mail it in is way ahead, sure.
But the Jets were so outclassed, they remain far below the standard required at this time of year.
Everything they did over the course of the season, they undid against the Mile-high Avs.
That Jennings Trophy they won for allowing the fewest goals? They should give it back after becoming the most porous playoff team in NHL history.
You read that right: the Jets are the first team in league history to allow at least five goals in each of their first five playoff games.
Connor Hellebuyck, the soonto-be reigning Vezina Trophy winner, finished the series with a 5.23 goals-against-average.
And he wasn't at all bad. In fact, he was pretty darn good, and that might be the most damning indication of all.
No, he didn't steal a game in this series, and we're not sure the last time he did. In his last 14 playoff starts, Hellebuyck's record is a mind-boggling 2-12. But he wasn't the problem. When your goalie plays well and you're still outscored 28-15, you've been schooled. Imagine if Hellebuyck hadn't played well? What the Jets lack is grit.
If the post-season is a sandpaper game, they're about a 400, the stuff used for finishing, not removing layers.
This isn't about adding a knuckle-dragger. It's about getting your elite talent to raise the intensity a few notches.
Colorado's did, Winnipeg 's didn't. Or can't.
Just compare that 7-0 Jets win down in Denver not so long ago to what we just witnessed.
“There's no comparison to what we saw in the regular season,” Bowness acknowledged. “Their intensity and their speed went way up. They've won a Stanley Cup and it showed itself this series. They raised their battle-level more than anything.
“The teams that have won know how to get there. They got there. They flipped a switch.”
Some Jets may have that switch. Some definitely don't.
Others don't know where it is, yet.
Bowness turned to an oldschool analogy.
“At the end of a playoff series, if you're not putting an ice bag on, you're not playing hard enough,” he said. “Simple as that.”
There was no sign of an ice bag in the Winnipeg room. Then again, there were no players in it, either.
Only two came out to take questions, the captain and one of his assistants.
Both looked and sounded devastated.
Morrissey says if the Jets don't spend the summer finding a way to reach another level, it's all been a waste of time.
“I hope it stings for all of us into the summer,” he said. “And we use it as motivation.”
At the end of a playoff series, if you’re not putting an ice bag on, you’re not playing hard enough. Simple as that.
RICK BOWNESS, Jets head coach
The coach echoed that, saying if you can't find that next level, “you don't win the Stanley Cup.” I had one last question for him. How does he know the Jets even have the kind of players to do it?
“Well,” Bowness said. “Those are questions we have to answer over the course of the summer.”
Seems they've already been answered.