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Doom and Gloom

June 7, 2021, 12:04 PM ET [54 Comments]
Anthony Travalgia
Winnipeg Jets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
There’s no sugarcoating this one: The Jets are in trouble.

They enter Game 4 in Montreal Monday night trailing their best-of-seven series with the Canadiens 3-0.

Now, there’s really no margin for error.

The Jets will be traveling back to Winnipeg late Monday night. When they land, either preparation for Game 5 begins, or the process of dissecting what went wrong is next.

"We know the situation, we know what's at stake here," said Adam Lowry who scored the Jets only goal in Sunday’s 5-1 Game 3 loss.

"It's a game at a time, as cliché as that is, it's about winning the next one. We expect to come out strong [Monday]. That's all we can do."

A whole lot, and I mean a whole lot needs to change for the Jets if they have plans on winning Game 4 and keeping the series alive.

It starts with scoring goals. You know, the basic goal of the game of hockey.

As the Jets are finding out, getting pucks Carey Price is no easy task. The Jets aren’t really doing themselves any favors offensively however, especially five-on-five.

Through three games in the series, the Jets have two five-on-five goals. They’ve generated just 56 even strength scoring chances, 18 coming in high-danger areas.

As good as Price has been—and boy has he—the Jets five-on-five expected goals for sits at 4.62, showing the Jets haven’t done much of anything in the offensive zone to make Price’s job any more difficult that it already is.

"When you're having a hard time scoring you've got to push early as hard as you can, at least to get the good feeling," said head coach Paul Maurice. "Get the zone time, get pucks to the net, some chances, some looks and then your confidence will grow from there."

If you want to point at Mark Scheifele and his poor decision in Game 1 and blame that for the Jets scoring issues, please do.

But it goes much deeper than that.

Pierre-Luc Dubois, Blake Wheeler, Kyle Connor and Nikolaj Ehlers have combined for one goal and one assist in the series.

Those four offensively talented forwards are more than capable of carrying the bulk of what the Jets need to do offensively to be successful.

They haven’t come close to doing so.

“You’ve got to keep believing. You can’t reinvent the wheel now; you can’t start over and try to do something completely different. Obviously, if you lose one more game, we all know the consequences of that,” said Wheeler.

Trailing 1-0 for the third consecutive game Sunday, Wheeler fired a shot at Price, beating him. Wheeler thought the puck had struck the goal camera before bouncing back out.

What it did strike was the crossbar—one of two the Jets would hit in Game 3. Instead of a 1-1 game, the Jets remained scoreless and could never get that momentum swing they so desperately needed.

"I was dead certain that it went in. I thought it hit the back-bar or the goalie camera, the camera in the net," said Wheeler. "It felt like I scored, it's a 1-1 hockey game, and it kind of changes the complexion of things."

Even if the Jets do figure it out in Game 4, extending their season for at least one more night, they’ll once again be without Scheifele in Game 5, the final of his four-game suspension.

Help is not on the way just yet.

“I think the thought process is very much the same, we’ve got to just stay together. Certainly, when you lose Mark, we’ve got to rely on the depth of our team,” said Wheeler. “That has been the strength of our team all year. We have four lines that can be effective and produce and get the job done.”

With five-on-five issues very much present, power play success is also non-existent. Montreal has outscored Winnipeg 3-0 with the Jets on the man advantage.

The Canadiens are clicking at the right time, playing dominate hockey against the Jets. Montreal hasn't trailed since they lost Game 4 to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round.

Now, the Jets are left trying to figure out how to get enough pucks past Price to win a hockey game, and force Game 5 back in Winnipeg Wednesday night.

"He’s human, he’s going to let in some goals. We just have to create as many chances as we can to get some by him,” said Lowry.

If the Jets are to show Price is indeed human, and they can get pucks by him, they’re going to have to be much better in front of him.

It’s simple to say things like “we need to take his eyes away” or “we need to get to the good ice,” doing so is not as simple.

Whether it’s a beauty of a goal, a dirty goal or one hell of a lucky goal, the Jets need to play with a lead and go from there.

No one knows how this series would look if the Jets had a lead, any lead, at any point of the three games this series.

"Hopefully one goes off of one of their sticks and ricochets into the net and we'll take a lead and see how it looks from there," said Wheeler.

As Lowry said, yes, it’s cliché.

One game at a time. The Jets also need to take it one goal at a time.

In a situation where your back is up against the wall and you're facing a 3-0 series deficit, all the clichés are brought to the table.

Hopefully, those clichés turn into goals.
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