Winnipeg Jets no match for Lightning, falling 4-1 to East’s top team

Over the course of an NHL season, upsets happen all the time.

But the more common occurrence sees the better team on paper taking care of business on home ice, and that’s exactly what happened Thursday night in Tampa Bay.

The Winnipeg Jets were no match for the Eastern Conference’s top team, falling to the Lightning 4-1 in game two of a four-game road swing.

Kyle Connor scored the Jets only goal as they were held to just 22 shots on net in losing for the third time in their last four games.

“It’s frustrating because I thought we had been playing a decent hockey game,” said Jets captain Adam Lowry. “We were right in it and then they make it two-nothing and we fight to get back and then kinda feed right back into their offence.”

The Lightning have won seven straight games on home ice going back to mid-December and have just one regulation loss in their last 18 games overall to sit on top of the east.

Winnipeg never had a lead, and the Jets puck management continues to be a major issue as they made way too many turnovers, especially in the second period.

“The second period – it wasn’t what they took away, it was our stubbornness not to get the pucks down to the goal line,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “We turned the puck over six-seven times just inside their blue line. If you do that against transition teams like Tampa, they’re gonna go the other way.

“For us, can’t play on the outside against a team like that. You got to get on the inside. You can’t turn pucks over and for me, those are the areas what you have to do on a consistent basis.”

The Jets have only won back-to-back road games once all season and have just a 9-15-2 record away from home.

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Trailing by only two goals to start the final frame, the Jets really had a tough time generating chances and managed only four shots on goal the entire third period and were outshot 27-12 over the final 40 minutes.

“They play hard and they’re really disciplined in terms of giving up their chances and sticking to their systems,” said Jets forward Morgan Barron. “Sometimes that requires us to be patient and keep putting pucks behind them. Probably didn’t do a good enough job of that tonight at times. I felt like it kinda required us to play a simple game and we had success when we did that, but we probably didn’t do it consistently enough.”

The Jets had the first good chance to score just over five minutes into the contest when Barron found himself on a partial breakaway, but Andrei Vasilevskiy was up to the challenge, turning aside his backhand deke attempt.

The first power play of the game also went to Winnipeg when J.J. Moser was called for holding with 11:33 to go in the opening frame but the Jets couldn’t solve the league’s third-best penalty kill.

Moments after the penalty expired, the Lightning had a rush attempt but during the action, Logan Stanley inadvertently collided with superstar forward Nikita Kucherov, catching him in the head.

Kucherov spent a couple of minutes down on the ice before heading off to the locker room. He missed the remainder of the first period but returned for the start of the second.

The Lightning broke the ice with 5:02 left in the period. Tampa Bay worked the puck into the Winnipeg end with Darren Raddysh taking it along the boards. With Elias Salomonsson checking him, Raddysh was able to slip it over to Dominic James, flying down the ice with no defender around him before he fired a shot five-hole on Connor Hellebuyck.

Winnipeg wound up outshooting Tampa Bay 11-10 in the first but trailed 1-0 heading to the second.

Tampa Bay doubled their lead just 1:37 into the second when Raddysh blasted a shot from the point that beat Hellebuyck through a maze of bodies.

Winnipeg cut the lead in half with 7:35 left in the period. After Connor was denied from the high slot by Vasilevskiy, the puck was worked back to the point where Dylan Samberg sent a low shot on net that Connor tipped past the Lightning goalie for his 24th of the season.

Right after the goal, Barron and Tanner Pearson had a 2-on-1 but couldn’t get a great chance on net with the Lightning back-checking hard.

Tampa restored their two-goal lead with 4:43 to go in the second on a delayed penalty call. The Lightning crisply worked the puck around the Winnipeg zone before Kucherov sent a deceptive pass to the slot that Yanni Gourde steered past Hellebuyck.

The Lightning outshot the Jets 11-8 as they took the 3-1 lead into the third against a Jets team that came in with a 1-17-2 record when trailing after 40 minutes. Making matters worse for Winnipeg, Tampa Bay entered the game with a 23-1 record when leading after two.

The Jets had a chance to cut into the lead when Jack Finley sent the puck over the glass from his own end with 13:19 remaining but Winnipeg only generated one shot at the end of the power play that was turned aside by Vasilevskiy.

Tampa Bay had the bulk of the chances as the third period rolled along as Winnipeg barely had any offensive zone time, managing to get just three shots on goal in the first 16 minutes of the period.

With 2:44 to go, Hellebuyck went to the bench for an extra attacker, but it didn’t help generate any offence before Kucherov scored into the empty net with just over a minute remaining.

Tampa Bay wound up outshooting Winnipeg 16-4 in the third in a dominant close to the game. Hellebuyck made 33 saves in a losing effort.

Winnipeg will continue this road trip against the Panthers Saturday afternoon in Sunrise. Pregame coverage on 680 CJOB will start at 1 p.m. with the puck dropping just after 3 p.m.