After putting together one of their strongest performances in weeks in a win over the New York Rangers, the Winnipeg Jets did not bring that elite level of play with them to New Jersey.
The Jets were badly outshot and their special teams units let them down in a 4-1 loss to the Devils on Thursday.
It was a rare off night for the Jets who had their three-game win streak snapped with the loss to a desperate team who are trying to get back into the playoff race.
Jack Hughes scored a pair and his brother Luke recorded three assists. Nikolaj Ehlers scored the lone goal for Winnipeg.
The Jets surrendered three power play goals, while going 0-for-4 on the man advantage themselves.
“Unacceptable really,” said Jets defenceman Brenden Dillon. “We lost the game on special teams. We know how important it is on both sides of it.
“To give up f–king three PK (penalty kill) goals is just absolutely not acceptable for us.”
Winnipeg’s special teams had showed a great improvement in recent weeks until Thursday’s big letdown.
“Our PK had been trending better than what it showed tonight,” said Jets associate coach Scott Arniel. “And can’t give up three goals. We had some chances to clear pucks – we didn’t. We had some situations there even right near the end where it was almost over, and we just kinda fell asleep on those situations.”
“Sometimes it goes that way,” said Ehlers. “You can’t score a power play goal every night. We obviously tried to and PK is trying to shut their PP (power play) down every single night. Obviously, we need to do a lot better.”
Jake Allen needed to make just 18 saves for his third victory over Winnipeg this season after winning his first two with the Montreal Canadiens.
Jets goalie Laurent Brossoit had his shutout streak snapped in the second period at nearly three full games, falling less than eight minutes away from Ondrej Pavelec’s franchise record. The Jets gave up at least 40 shots for the second straight game.
“We can’t make him work that hard – any goaltender,” Arniel said. “We gave up some quality and I know that after they got up a little bit we were still trying to press for offence, but at the end of the day, we’re known for defending our end of the rink and not giving up much, not giving teams a lot of opportunities 5-on-5, and tonight we didn’t do that as well.”
Tyler Toffoli appeared in his 800th career NHL game. Cole Perfetti was a healthy scratch for the fourth game in a row, but Colin Miller returned to the lineup after a three-game absence to replace Nate Schmidt.
Neither side was able to find the back of the net in a fairly uneventful first period. While the Jets had two power play chances, the Devils outshot them 6-5 in the opening 20 minutes.
New Jersey began to take over in the second leading to their first power play chance and they took advantage straight away. A point shot deflected off Dylan Samberg and wound up on the stick of a wide-open Jack Hughes who buried it to open the scoring exactly nine minutes into the period.
The goal snapped Brossoit’s shutout streak that dated back nearly three full games and at 179:29 was the second-longest in franchise history.
The Devils carried the bulk of play as the period went along before Ehlers decided to take matters into his own hands.
After the Jets had an extended shift in the New Jersey zone, the puck came out to centre and Ehlers retreated to collect the puck near his own blue line as his teammates changed. He turned and flew up the ice with the puck, making a great move at the Devils line that sent Brendan Smith to the ice before bolting towards the net and sending a laser beam of a shot through Allen to level the score with 3:13 left in the period.
New Jersey outshot the Jets 22-9 in the middle frame, the most shots on goal that the Jets have surrendered in a period this season.
The Devils regained control of the lead on the power play just under six minutes into the third when Nico Hischier, just three seconds before Dylan DeMelo was to leave the penalty box, deflected a shot through Brossoit.
The power play struck again with just over eight minutes left when Jack Hughes beat Brossoit through a thick screen for his second of the night.
The Jets failed on two third period power plays as they struggled to put anything together offensively on on the night.
Timo Meier put the nail in the coffin with an empty-netter with 49 seconds to go.
Brossoit turned aside 37 shots in the game.
The Jets will look for a bounce-back effort Saturday afternoon when they pay a visit to the Islanders. The pregame show begins at 10 a.m. on 680 CJOB with puck drop set for shortly after 12 p.m.
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