Jets close home stand with loss to Vancouver

WINNIPEG - Two milestones were being celebrated at Canada Life Centre on Thursday night, unfortunately neither of them got the storybook ending.
Johnathan Kovacevic's first National Hockey League game - as well as Adam Lowry's 500th - will have the bitter memory of a 5-1 loss attached to them, as the Winnipeg Jets dropped a 5-1 decision to the Vancouver Canucks.
The setback drops the Jets record to 17-16-7, and 0-4-2 in their last six.
"We just need to be a little bit better everywhere," said Jets captain Blake Wheeler. "Those little things are adding up right now. We're just a little bit late to everything right now and it's hurting us."
Special teams had been a strength for the Jets of late, but even the power play and penalty kill had their issues on Thursday.
Two of Vancouver's five goals came on the power play, while the Jets came up empty on three opportunities on the man advantage.
Ultimately, it was only Andrew Copp who could beat Vancouver goaltender Spencer Martin.

"Our PK has been going pretty good, but that struggled tonight. I think there's just a lot of different facets where we're just a half step off," said Copp. "So, it's got to get cleaned up, we just got to play better."
Coming into the night, Vancouver's J.T. Miller led all Canucks with eight points in the last 11 games against Winnipeg.
He kept that play up, scoring the first three goals for the Canucks to complete the hat trick.
His first was a power play marker, just 10 seconds in to a Ville Heinola cross-checking minor in the first period. Miller found space in the left circle and one-timed a centering pass from Brock Boeser 13:23 into the opening period.

Copp tied the game just over two minutes later, batting a puck out of mid-air after Wheeler's wrist shot was deflected into the air and out of the sight of Martin. It was Copp's 12th of the campaign.
The rest of the night - despite numerous offensive zone shifts and scoring chances - the Jets caught iron, or Martin made one of this 33 saves.
"I don't think it's frustration. I think it's disappointment," interim head coach Dave Lowry said of his group. "These guys are great pros, they take a lot of pride in their game. Obviously as a group we're disappointed in the results right now."
Miller's second of the night came off the rush just 5:25 into the second. Boeser - who finished with four points on the night - sent a cross-ice seam pass to Miller, who was streaking down the right wing. A quick release from Miller in the circle beat Hellebuyck on the stick side.
The hat trick was completed 7:30 later, as Miller's wrist shot from the opposite wing beat Hellebuyck through the legs.
It was the type of rush chance the Jets had worked on in practice the previous day. However, the Jets defence continues to change with Kovacevic stepping in for Dylan Samberg - who had stepped in for the injured Logan Stanley earlier this month.
Josh Morrissey and Dylan DeMelo also didn't play due to COVID-19 and an upper-body injury respectively. Add that to the absence of Nikolaj Ehlers up front, and the adversity continues to add up for the Jets.
"We have a really young hockey team and we're also putting new faces in our lineup daily," said Wheeler. "It's just a lot of different pieces right now, a few wrinkles that have changed in our system, some faces that have changed kind of on a day-to-day basis, a different lineup every night and I think we've kind of lost sort of a feel for where everyone's going to be."

Kovacevic finished with 10:21 of ice time in his debut, while Ville Heinola - playing in his second game of the season with the Jets - played 12:25.
"We've got some young guys on the back end, we want them to make plays," said Lowry. "If you tell him just to the puck out, that's not going to develop him, right? We know that we have some young guys in our lineup, we know there are going to be some mistakes. But we'll continue to encourage them to try and make plays."
Boeser made it 4-1 Canucks 68 seconds into the third with Pierre-Luc Dubois off for high-sticking. Just seven seconds into the man advantage, Boeser joined a net front scramble and whacked a rebound off the inside of the post and in.
Pettersson rounded out the scoring, taking advantage of a wounded Neal Pionk - who blocked a shot earlier in the shift - and rifled a wrist shot top corner from the left circle.
It wasn't the way the Jets envisioned the first two games at home in over a month playing out.
"We're going to have to continue to work. We've got a group here where we know how to win," said Lowry. "We're not the first team that has faced this kind of situation. We just will continue to work, we'll work for our bounces, we'll work for our breaks, and win a hockey game"
The Jets now head out on the road for two games in St. Louis and Philadelphia before the All-Star break.
"We can go through a list and those would be labeled excuses, and I'm not in real big hurry to start using excuses," said Wheeler. "But fragile is not a word I would use to describe this group. We've had to deal with a lot this year."