The Winnipeg Jets lost consecutive games for the first time in 20 games as they dropped a 6-3 decision to the New York Islanders. The Jets (44-21-5) remain two points out of first place in the Central Division behind both Colorado and Dallas. Vladislav Namestnikov, Mason Appleton and Cole Perfetti scored for the Jets who trailed 3-1 after the first and 6-1 after the second. Winnipeg will wrap up their five-game road trip tomorrow afternoon at Washington.
HEAD SCRATCHING START
The Jets were down 1-0 early this afternoon. After Morgan Barron won the defensive zone faceoff, the puck went off Vladislav Namestnikov’s stick, through Neal Pionk’s skates and right to Cal Clutterbuck who beat Connor Hellebuyck at 5:22. Clutterbuck would add to his goal total at 8:50, as he came down the left side and rifled a shot over Hellebuyck’s shoulder to make it 2-0. The shots were 10-1 when Winnipeg finally got on the board, in the neutral zone, Morgan Barron tipped the puck right on the stick of Vladislav Namestnikov who went in and beat Semyon Varlamov on Winnipeg’s second shot of the period. The Islanders would get that back with another goal off the rush, Kyle Palmieri got away from a Jets defender and put a high shot over a lunging Hellebuyck. The Islanders ended up outshooting the Jets 15-3 in the opening 20 minutes.
"Usually when the shots are that lopsided, it's everything. Like I said earlier on, they're a team that competes really hard,” said Josh Morrissey.
“They're physical, they're forecheck game, defensive game — they're a hard-nosed team. They were just winning every battle, faster to pucks, better execution, more desperate all over the ice.”
FIRST GOALIE PULL OF SEASON
It didn’t get much better for the Jets in the second period as Hudson Fasching and Mathew Barzal would score in at 1:51 and 9:11 respectively. The shots were 27-4 at the time of the Barzal goal and Scott Arniel pulled Connor Hellebuyck with the score 5-1 in favour of the Islanders. Laurent Brossoit replaced Hellebuyck marking the first time this season that either Hellebuyck or Brossoit have been pulled.
“We didn't do a good enough job spending enough time in their end,” said Adam Lowry.
“You have results like that, at one point they had more goals than we had shots on net. I feel bad for our goalies. We left them out to dry.”
MUCH BETTER THIRD
The question heading into the final period was if they Jets would give themselves something to build off of? The answer was yes. Arniel changed up his top nine forwards to start the third:
Ehlers – Scheifele – Appleton
Connor – Monahan – Namestnikov
Niederreiter – Lowry – Toffoli
The Jets would wake up and outshoot the Islanders 10-1 in the first eight minutes and Mason Appleton would make it 6-2 at 7:37 banging in Ehlers rebound. Josh Morrissey would collect the secondary assist giving him 300 career points. Cole Perfetti would round out the scoring with his 15th in his return to the lineup after being scratched the previous four games. Winnipeg would outshoot the Islanders 18-3 in the final period.
