After getting off to one of the hottest starts in NHL history this season, the Winnipeg Jets are crashing back to earth.
Returning home from a six-game road trip, Winnipeg looked lifeless in a 4-1 loss to the Blues Tuesday night, their fourth loss in a row and seventh in their last ten games.
Not much happened in the opening 20 minutes with neither team scoring or taking a penalty. Winnipeg outshot the Blues 8-6 in the first.
Just over two and a half minutes into the second, St. Louis came within a few inches of opening the scoring when Jordan Kyrou’s shot squeezed through the pads of Connor Hellebuyck and skittered toward the net but Haydn Fleury cleared it away before it crossed the goal line.
St. Louis was given the game’s first power way just under seven minutes into the second when Dylan DeMelo was called for holding the stick but the Blues and their 27th-ranked power play failed to convert.
With 8:30 left in the second, Winnipeg was put on the man advantage when Nathan Walker went to the box for slashing but the Jets’ 2nd-ranked power play struggled as well, failing to register a shot on goal.
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The Jets very briefly had a second power play of the night when Jake Neighbors tripped Adam Lowry but on the ensuing faceoff, Gabriel Vilardi was called for interference, setting up 1:56 of 4-on-4 hockey that the Blues took full advantage of. .
With player battling for the puck at the Blues’ blue line, the puck squirted out into the neutral zone where it was collected by Brayden Schenn. He carried it into the Winnipeg end before saucing a pass to Jordan Kyrou in the slot. Kyrou tried to toe-drag it around Hellebuyck who got a piece of it but the loose puck bounced off the skate of a backchecking Mark Scheifele and into the open net at the 18:04 mark.
39 seconds later, it was 2-0 St. Lewis. Dylan Holloway and Robert Thomas ran a give-and-go inside the Winnipeg blue line, leaving Holloway with the puck in the slot. His initial shot was denied by Hellebuyck but he banged home the rebound to double the Blues’ lead.
St. Louis outshot the Jets by a whopping 19–3 margin in the middle 20 minutes, giving them a two-period advantage of 25–11.
It didn’t get much better for Winnipeg in the third.
Kyrou made it 3-0 at the 6:38 mark when he collected a loose puck in the Winnipeg end, spun and fired a shot from the slot that beat Hellebuyck through a maze of bodies.
With Winnipeg shorthanded later in the period, Lowry had a great chance to get the Jets on the board but he was denied by Joel Hofer on a partial breakaway. It was Winnipeg’s 14th shot of the night just shy of the halfway point of the third.
Facing a three-goal deficit with 5:01 to go, Scott Arniel decided to pull Hellebuyck for an extra attacker, hoping to jump-start a miracle rally and with 4:15 to go, Mark Scheifele buried a juicy rebound past Joel Hofer to make it 3-1 with his first goal in seven games.
With a faceoff coming in the offensive zone with 3:46 remaining, Hellebuyck went to the bench again but Thomas found the empty net just seven seconds later to put the game on ice and send fans flocking to the exits.
Hellebuyck turned aside 28 shots in defeat while Hofer, a Winnipeg native, stopped 22 shots for St. Lewis.
The Jets head right back on the road for a date with the Buffalo Sabers Thursday. Pregame coverage on 680 CJOB begins at 4 pm with the puck dropping just after 6 pm