Jets face elimination, ‘need to change some things up’ after Game 4 loss

DENVER -- For the Winnipeg Jets, Sunday was more of the same, and not in a good way.

Once again, they struggled to find offense. Once again, they took too many penalties. Once again, they couldn’t kill off enough of those penalties.

And for the second consecutive season, the Jets find themselves on the brink of an early exit from the Stanley Cup Playoffs ahead of Game 5 at Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg on Tuesday (9:30 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SNW, ALT, ESPN).

“The problems are self-inflicted,” Jets coach Rick Bowness said after a 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round on Sunday.

“Want to take penalties? Want to play a three-quarter ice game? You're playing right into their hands. Our issues are self-inflicted. You saw us play the right way for 10 minutes in the second half of the first period. You take four penalties, you turn the puck over, that's exactly how they want to play. The issues are self-inflicted.”

Forward Mark Scheifele has repeatedly said that the Avalanche have made adjustments from their three regular-season meetings, all of which the Jets won, and Winnipeg hasn’t.

“They're a fast team. They keep you on your toes and clearly they've made those adjustments from the regular season, and we just let that get away from us and lost our composure a little bit in that second period and it cost us,” Scheifele said.

Perhaps it was apropos that the postgame comments came up more than once because the same problems arose for the Jets in Game 4 as in Game 3. For the second consecutive game, the Jets committed too many penalties in one period. On Sunday, the Avalanche got four power plays in the second period after getting five in the third in Game 3. The result was the same: once again, the Avalanche scored two power-play goals to break open a close game and take control.

Sure, the Jets missed defenseman Brenden Dillon, who sustained an injury to his left hand in a scrum after the Jets’ 6-2 loss to the Avalanche in Game 3 on Friday. But much of what the Avalanche did against the Jets on Sunday happened with Dillon in the lineup the previous game.

Asked how close the Jets are to playing their best game, forward Nino Niederreiter said, “very far.”

“We always have some stretches where we play very well, and then we get stretches where we don’t play the way we should be playing,” he said. “They came out better out of the gates than we did and that’s something we need to change.”

The Jets did make some changes Sunday to the forward lines. Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, recalled from Manitoba of the American Hockey League on Saturday, came into the lineup, touted for his speed and penalty killing. He didn’t play any short-handed minutes.

Nikolaj Ehlers, usually left wing on the second line with center Sean Monahan and right wing Tyler Toffoli, moved to the third line with center Adam Lowry and right wing Mason Appleton. Niederreiter moved up to Ehlers’ spot. The Jets still struggled to generate much.

The Jets may have to add another forward to the lineup in Game 5 for Vladislav Namestnikov, who had to be helped off the ice after he was hit in the face by Jets defenseman Nate Schmidt’s shot at 6:57 of the third period.

“Vladdy is at the hospital being looked at right now,” Bowness said. “That's all I have until we get a report from what they see, what is wrong.”

Goalie Connor Hellebuyck was replaced by Laurent Brossoit to start the third period, but Bowness said that had nothing to do with his starter.

“(To) give him a break. Give him a break,” he said of Hellebuyck, who made 26 saves on 30 shots through two periods.

“There’s just too much time (he is) having to make save after save. Just giving him a break. It’s not on him whatsoever. It’s on the players in front of him.”

The Jets are in danger of repeating the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, when they won Game 1 against the Vegas Golden Knights before losing the next four in their first-round matchup. But last year the Jets were the second wild card from the West. This season they won their final eight regular-season games and took second in the Central Division.

Scheifele said there isn’t a comparison there but if the Jets don’t find their game soon, there unfortunately will be.

“Completely different teams on both sides of the coin,” he said. “We had a good regular season against them and they made adjustments and we haven't. We've got to bring a different game come Tuesday. We've got to fix some things. We've got to change some things up. That's about it.”