IT’S GOING TO BE A WILD RIDE
For better or worse, new-look Jets are going to be exciting to watch this season
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Winnipeg Jets through two games of this young NHL season, it’s that they are an exciting hockey team to watch.
They’re going to score goals with regularity and they’re going to give them up as well.
They’ve got all kinds of offensive talent and they’ve got defensive deficiencies, and while that’s not always a recipe for success, it sure makes for good viewing.
Friday night’s 5-4 shootout win over the New Jersey Devils came 24 hours after a 6-4 loss in New York and, in both games, the offensive firepower was on full display.
There’s also plenty of fight in the group, which includes an 18-year-old rookie defenceman (Ville Heinola), seven new faces on the 23-man roster and six players aged 22 or younger.
Playing in their opponent’s home opener on back-to-back nights, the Jets put up 47 shots and 81 shot attempts in a tough loss Thursday against the Rangers and then, on Friday, they overcame a 4-0 deficit in the final 20 minutes and 10 seconds of the game to beat the Devils.
“In the first period, it was like eating a sand sandwich on toast and maybe it just got way better until no one defended,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said of the win over the Devils. “So it got pretty darn exciting at the end.”
The Jets generated only four shots and eight shot attempts in the first period against the Devils and it wasn’t much better in the second. Tucker Poolman and Anthony Bitetto made unforced errors with the puck to give the Devils a gift first goal by Nikita Gusev. Mark Scheifele and Nikolaj Ehlers did something similar as Blake Coleman made it 2-0.
Backup goalie Laurent Brossoit let in a long point shot from Sami Vatanen and a onehanded, falling-down flip by Coleman that made it look like it just would not be the Jets’ night.
But defenceman Dmitry Kulikov scored his first goal in two seasons with 10 seconds left in the second period and that got the ball rolling and set the stage for the big Winnipeg comeback.
Goals from third/fourth liners Jack Roslovic and Mathieu Perreault got the Jets to within one and defenceman Neal Pionk, acquired in the Jacob Trouba trade, tied the game with 7:25 left after a period of heavy extended pressure by the Jets.
Captain Blake Wheeler scored the shootout winner and Brossoit made 35 saves, plus three more in the shootout to get the win.
It made for a memorable night for this group that is still bonding — how often do NHL teams come back to win when they’re four goals down? — and it’s a victory they all believe they can build upon.
What Maurice saw was calmness, perseverance and positivity maintained on the bench. “If we can just get one, we’ll have a chance,” the players kept saying to each other when they were down by four.
“You handle your day and you handle where you are,” Maurice said.
“We got ourselves behind it for sure. It was a big goal by Kulikov to put a little bit of a spin on that going into the third.
“Most times when you’re in a situation like that, you never give yourself a chance. The opposite was true. The bench was right, we put pucks in the net, we got a few breaks that we hadn’t gotten earlier and maybe even (Thursday) night, when we felt we had some pretty good offence and we couldn’t capitalize.
“But everybody gets a piece of it at that point, from a defenceman scoring the tying goal, to (Brossoit), who was fantastic in the net.”
That, of course, brings up another point.
While Hellebuyck struggled in a game the Jets likely should have won on Thursday, giving up five goals on 31 shots, Brossoit made some big saves on Friday and stopped 35 shots in total.
There are already a lot of fans who are worried about or upset with Hellebuyck’s play and surely those who are vocal on social media will only grow louder after this week’s events.
It’s likely to continue to be a big topic of conversation in the city as this heavy early season stretch continues Sunday in Long Island and Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
It doesn’t look like the Jets goalies are going to have the luxury of a whole lot of clampdown defence in front of them.
Goals are going to be scored and the Jets are going to have to outscore their problems on many nights.
Unless you’re the man between the pipes, it will be a blast to watch.
Most times when you’re in a situation like that, you never give yourself a chance. The opposite was true. The bench was right, we put pucks in the net.
Jets coach Paul Maurice