The playoff push gets even harder after the Jets loss to the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. Some main positives to take away from the game include Hellebuyck playing well, despite what the stat sheet may show, Kyle Connor scoring his 40th goal of the year, and Nikolaj Ehlers was doing a great job moving the puck.

Some of the biggest flaws in the Jets game start with the defense. There were many occasions that a bad pinch, lazy turnover, or just a poor misreading led to a Senators goal. As I have said many times in these blogs, I don't have an issue with any of the defenders on the team, but almost none of them mesh well together, especially under Dave Lowry's coaching system.

Josh Morrissey opened the scoring close to the mid-way point of the first period, after some nice passing from Wheeler and Scheifele, Morrissey takes the puck from the point to below the hashmarks and aims for a pass to Blake Wheeler out front, but it ends up taking a bounce and beating Anton Forsberg.

After this, things would go downhill for a while, for the Jets. Brady Tkachuk scores his first of the game on a deflected shot by Artem Zub, and beats Hellebuyck. It was a pretty even period, for the most part, and though many penalties didn't get called, it was a fun start to the game.

The second period was also quite quiet. and the Jets really struggled to get some offensive zone possession. It was a back and forth period in the neutral zone, as the Jets couldn't get it past the Sens blueline, and the Sens just kept dumping it in deep in the Jets zone, and turning it over.

Where the game really fell apart was the 3rd period. The Jets registered 5 shots in the first 2:37 of the period, but then went the next 14:40 without a shot. This was very frustrating to watch, when focusing on the fact the Jets were fighting for their playoff lives. The Senators managed to score 3 goals in that span. The first was a poor pinch by Logan Stanley, who missed the puck when it was shot overhead, giving Mathieu Joseph a chance for a 1-on-1, but Tyler Ennis beat Stanley back to the play and recieved a pass from Joseph and scored an easy tap-in goal. The second Senators goal of the period was a bit of a weird play. After Brendan Dillon turns the puck over behind the Jets net, he then takes an unnecessary hooking penalty. This gives the Senators the first powerplay of the game, and just over a minute into it, Tim Stutzle passes to Colin White who is right at the post, and White makes a nice spin move, but doesn't get too much of a shot off. I think this confused Hellebuyck, who let the shot in far-side, and it just kind of followed the line of Hellebuyck's pad. It is a shot that Hellebuyck should have had, but it was such a weird angle that the Jets goaltender was thrown off by it. The next Senators goal caught Hellebuyck out of positioning, as Stutzle had everyone tracking him, and found Connor Brown out front for a tap-in.

Strong defensive coverage by the Jets could have prevented almost all of these goals. It was a period the whole team would like to forget, except maybe Kyle Connor. With just over 3:30 to go, the Jets pulled their goalie, and Kyle Connor was able to score his 40th goal of the year, and they would try again, but Brady Tkachuk scored his second of the game on the empty net to finish things off.

This did not look like a team that was fighting to get into the playoffs. I am not sure what has to change, whether it be team leadership, coaching, it could be a lot of different things. Or, it could be all of them. One game isn't really enough to look at and say a team should make drastic moves in the offseason, but if there was that one game, one period even, it was this one.

Let me know your thoughts on if you think the Jets can still go on a run, or if they miss the playoffs for just the first time since missing the 2016-17 playoffs.

If you made it all the way to to bottom here, I appreciate that! Let me know in the comment section what other kinds of thing you would like to see from me here, as the season comes to a close soon, and what you would like to see in the summer! I am looking for the best ways to improve the content for your reading experience! Let me know everything you are thinking!

I would also like to know if many of you would be interested in a Twitter Communities page for the Jets? Any interest there?

Jacob

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