There are no more undefeated teams in the National Hockey League.
The Winnipeg Jets found themselves in a big hole that they couldn’t dig out of Monday night, falling 6-4 to the Toronto Maple Leafs as Winnipeg’s eight-game win streak to open the season came to a screeching halt.
The Jets had several costly giveaways and the Leafs jumped out to a four-goal lead just 23 minutes into the hockey game. The Jets battled all the way back to make it a one-goal game in the final frame, but John Tavares scored his hat trick goal into an empty net to end their three-game losing skid, while handing the Jets their first loss of the season in front of their first sellout crowd.
“It just felt like everybody was off,” said head coach Scott Arniel. “It was everybody. It was, like you said, there was momentum building and then all of a sudden, there was a mistake, or made a turnover, or bad coverage, whatever. And all of a sudden Toronto gets some great chances. It was just those first two periods that’s a lot of what we did. It was just kinda shot ourselves in the foot.
“They wanted it and they came in here and gave us a punch right in the nose the first two periods.”
The Leafs have now won six straight meetings against the Jets.
“We just didn’t have the jump we needed,” said Jets forward Kyle Connor. “I thought they were a lot quicker to pucks. We just looked slow.”
Connor finished the night with two goals and two assists, but was originally credited with a hat trick until one of the goals was later given to Gabriel Vilardi.
Connor has still scored eight goals in the first nine games and has a point in every contest so far.
It was a tough night for the defensive pairing of Neal Pionk and Dylan Samberg. They were both on the ice for all of the first five goals against, and Samberg finished the night a minus-5.
Arniel felt his team had only two scoring chances at 5-on-5 in the first two periods.
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“We were hopeful to go 82 and 0 but that’s never been done,” said defenceman Josh Morrissey. “It was a tough game for us. Obviously got behind it four-nothing there with almost two periods to play. And it felt like we did a good job of battling back.”
The Jets fell two wins short of the NHL record for most wins to start the season which is shared by the 1993 Maple Leafs and the 2006 Buffalo Sabres who both started at 10-0.
Not only did the season-opening win streak get snapped, but the loss ended a run of 16 consecutive regular season wins for Winnipeg, one shy of matching the NHL record held by the 1992-1993 Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Leafs came out of the gates firing, outshooting the Jets 11-2 in the first 11 minutes thanks in part to an early power play but Connor Hellebuyck held down the fort.
But the Toronto pressure paid off at the 11:56 mark of the first when the visitors opened the scoring. After the Jets failed on multiple chances to get the puck out of their end, the Leafs sent the puck down low where it eventually found its way in front to Tavares for a tap-in opener.
This marked the seventh time in nine games this season that Winnipeg had allowed the opening goal.
Toronto’s slumping power play got a second chance later in the period thanks to a second penalty on Logan Stanley, but once again Winnipeg killed it off, dropping Toronto’s power play to 9.4 per cent on the season at that point.
But the Leafs kept the pressure on and capitalized on a bad Jets turnover to make it 2-0. Pionk had the puck in his own corner and floated a backhand pass behind him that was snatched up by Max Pacioretty, who then fed William Nylander in the slot. He roofed it past Hellebuyck to make it 2-0, just the second time in nine games that Winnipeg trailed by more than a goal.
Toronto wound up outshooting the Jets 19-6 in the first and it didn’t take long for the Leafs to expand their lead in the second.
The play started harmlessly enough when Hellebuyck collected a dump-in behind his net. A short pass to Samberg led to a turnover from Samberg off the Toronto forecheck, resulting in a shot that Hellebuyck turned aside but as he tried to get in position to stop the rebound, Samberg got in his way, leaving a gaping net for Matthew Knies to score into just 56 seconds into the period.
The Toronto onslaught continued just a few minutes later. With most of the players on the ice fighting for the puck in the corner to Hellebuyck’s left, Nylander made a sweet pass to a wide-open Morgan Rielly who ripped it off the post and in to make it 4-0 at the 3:25 mark of the second.
With nothing going right for Winnipeg, Toronto’s Pontus Holmberg took a penalty to send Winnipeg’s lethal power play to work. Connor roofed one past Anthony Stolarz late in the man advantage to get the Jets on the board at the 6:19 mark.
Less than a minute later, the Jets were back on the power play thanks to an Oliver Ekman-Larsson boarding penalty. Winnipeg had a couple close calls but couldn’t convert on the chance.
The Jets got a third power play in the period just past the midway point when Rielly sent the puck out of play in his own end and once again Connor made Toronto pay when he one-timed a pass from Josh Morrissey past Stolarz to make it 4-2 with 8:35 to go in the second.
Any momentum the Jets had generated disappeared when Toronto restored their three-goal lead. A point shot from Ekman-Larsson missed the net wide but bounced off the end-boards and trickled in front. As Hellebuyck scrambled in his crease, unsure of where the puck was, Tavares whacked it toward the net and it eluded Hellebuyck to make it 5-2 after 40 minutes.
Toronto had a 12-9 edge in shots in the second and for the first 40 minutes totalled 31 shots to Winnipeg’s 15.
Arniel switched up the defensive pairings and most of the forward combinations in the third period, searching for a spark.
With another penalty coming to Toronto, the Jets cut the score to 5-3 as Mark Scheifele one-timed a cross-ice feed from Connor at the 7:36 mark.
With 9:05 to go, Toronto’s Simon Benoit was sent to the box for tripping Nikolaj Ehlers, giving the Jets a great opportunity to cut into the Leafs’ lead but they barely got set up as Toronto got the kill.
With just over four minutes remaining, the Jets pulled Hellebuyck for an extra attacker and it paid off immediately as Connor fired one from the slot that was tipped in front by Vilardi, making things very interesting for the final 3:47.
But the Jets couldn’t get Hellebuyck back to the bench before the final 30 seconds of the game, at which point Tavares sent the puck down the ice into the empty net for the hat trick, giving the several-thousand Leafs fans in attendance one last thing to cheer about.
The Jets will look to start a new streak Wednesday evening in Detroit.
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