Struggling Jets drop ninth straight with 4-2 loss to Senators

OTTAWA – This time, there was no multi-goal lead to try and protect.

No frantic finish or opportunity to tie the game late, even after momentarily pulling within a goal in the third period.

Patches of steady – and occasionally, even solid play? Sure.

But there was also a mostly lifeless second period from a team that needed to display more urgency over the course of the entire contest.

As the Winnipeg Jets lost 4-2 to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night at Canada Tire Centre, an all-too familiar chorus emerged.

That’s what happens when a team drops a ninth consecutive game and goes home empty-handed on this three-game road trip through the Eastern Conference, falling to 15-21-4 overall as they continue to sit in the basement of the NHL.

“This isn’t one of those games where we look at and say that’s the blueprint, if we keep going (like this), we can have success,” said Jets captain Adam Lowry. “There’s spurts of it, for sure.

“It seems like the same story, where there’s a part of our game that falls short. We make one mistake and it tends to bleed into the rest of our game. I think that’s pretty much it.”

Instead of beginning the long and arduous climb out of the NHL basement, the Jets saw six potential points vanish into thin air, leaving them to ponder where they go from here in this season-long search for answers.

“After nine losses, it is frustrating, it is really frustrating,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “I am sure they are frustrated, the coaching staff is frustrated. You keep talking about learning lessons and you do things game to game and you hope that you build off one and into the next one and, like I mentioned before, you take one step forward and two steps back and that you can’t do that in this league.”

Arniel hit the nail on the head there.

For a veteran team that is the oldest in the NHL, the inability to find consistency – not even from game to game, but within the same game and from shift to shift – is mind-blowing when you consider the midway point of the season arrives on Tuesday when the Jets host the Vegas Golden Knights to open a five-game homestand.

“We have 42 games to go and it has already been a hard ride,” Arniel conceded. “I still believe that if we ever get our complete 60-minute game together, we can go on a run. We’re watching teams around the league going on runs and it is about putting that first one together and trying to build off it and go.

“You’ve got to play games in this league, you can’t mail them in. We are not going to let these guys quit and not come out and perform.”

That’s the one thing about the Jets during this stretch of hockey, the mounting frustration hasn’t led to any infighting or some of the other things that can infect a struggling bunch.

“I mean, finger pointing isn’t going to help anybody,” said Jets defenceman Dylan DeMelo. “It’s not going to get us to where we want to go. It’s not going to get us out of this. We all have a hand in where we are right now. No one’s immune to this. So it’s going to take all of us to pull ourselves out of it.

“You start with your internal reflection and go from there and understand that we all can be better because you know exactly where we are because of how we’ve played.”

Let’s take another look at how this one played out in the nation’s capital.

THE PUNCH

Jets defenceman Logan Stanley caught Senators captain Brady Tkachuk with a hard – and unexpected – punch to the face during the second period.

Tkachuk and Stanley were involved in a wrestling match in front of the Senators bench and after things appeared to calm down, Stanley unloaded a right hand.

Tkachuk was understandably upset with the series of events and plenty of heated words for the Jets, likely threatening some form of retribution.

Stanley was dinged for a double minor, while Tkachuk was sent to the room with a 10-minute misconduct.

The Senators scored with 17 seconds left in the double minor and the power-play marker from Drake Batherson made it 3-1 and ended up being the game-winning goal.

On Sunday, the NHL Department of Player Safety held a phone hearing with Stanley and eventually announced that the Jets D-man had received a one-game suspension for roughing.

The video released by the NHL Department of Player Safety cited the fact Tkachuk kept his gloves on, wasn’t expecting the exchange to escalate to a fight and was not poised to defend himself.

Stanley, who has seven goals and 13 points in 40 games this season, had not been fined or suspended previously in 242 NHL games.

He will be eligible to return to the Jets lineup on Thursday against the Edmonton Oilers.

LOWRY STRIKES

The Jets got a short-lived lead after a beautiful backhand pass from Kyle Connor that caromed off the boards and sprung Lowry for a breakaway.

Lowry pulled away in the neutral zone from the back-checker and calmly made a move to the backhand and scored through the five-hole of Leevi Meralainen.

“It was a great play by him. A world class player makes a world class play,” said Lowry. “The angle, the touch on it allowed me to get into stride. Fortunately that one found the back of the net. Like I said it was a good start but we weren’t able to carry that forward.”

It was the third goal of the season for Lowry and the fifth shorthanded marker of the campaign for the Jets.

For Lowry, it was the 12th shorthanded goal of his career, moving him into a tie with Marian Hossa for the franchise lead in that category.

NOT SO SPECIAL TEAMS

After what was essentially a stretch of eight consecutive one-goal losses (though one was a two-goal defeat after an empty-net goal), the Jets lost by a pair of goals thanks to a late marker from Claude Giroux.

One of the areas the Jets fell short was on special teams, as the Senators notched a pair of goals with the man-advantage (finishing two-for-five), while the Jets went zero-for-four on the power play.

Both of the Senators power-play markers came late in the man-advantages, with six seconds remaining in one and 17 seconds in the other.

“It just seems that’s the way it’s been going for the PK,” said DeMelo. “That’s really frustrating, because those are big moments for our team. And I know all the guys in the PK take a lot of pride in it, and it hasn’t been going our way. But we have to understand that there’s some things that we’ve got to do better with. And to a man, obviously, as our whole team, we’re in this for a reason, and we all need to obviously step it up here and try to get out of this funk.”

THE KEY PLAY

Batherson’s wrister near the end of a penalty kill ended up being the back-breaker.

THE THREE STARS

1. Tim Stutzle, Senators, Chipped in an assist and was the most noticeable player on the ice.

2. Thomas Chabot, Senators, Scored a pair of goals.

3. Drake Batherson, Senators, Supplied the game-winner.

EXTRA, EXTRA

Connor Hellebuyck made his 23rd start of the season and finished with 23 saves. Hellebuyck has only posted a .900 save percentage once in his past six starts – and that was when he gave up two goals on 20 shots in the first game coming out of the holiday break against the Edmonton Oilers.

Hellebuyck remains the least of the Jets’ concerns, but his recent play hasn’t been up to his gold (or Vezina) standard. His save percentage has dipped to .905 while his goals-against average is now 2.58. For the sake of comparison, when Hellebuyck won the Hart Trophy and his third Vezina, he had eight shutouts to go with a 2.00 goals-against average and .925 save percentage. It’s important to remember that the environment in front of Hellebuyck is vastly different, both when it comes to the volume and quality of shots he’s been facing.

The Jets healthy scratches were defencemen Haydn Fleury and Luke Schenn and forward Gustav Nyquist.

Former Brandon Wheat Kings captain Ridly Greig got a promotion on Saturday to the Senators’ top line with Tim Stutzle and Fabian Zetterlund and he chipped in an assist, giving him three goals and four points during his past five games.

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