The Winnipeg Jets have one shot to spin some positive into their road trip when they face the Calgary Flames on Saturday.
After a 5-3 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Thursday, the Jets have dropped four of five outings, all in regulation time, during their road trip that concludes in the Stampede City.
“There are some glimpses that we really liked our game, but we just kind of fell asleep,” forward Kyle Connor said. “We’re not executing, we’re playing slow at times, so it’s tough to get something going.”
In Seattle, the Jets were also unable to keep the momentum going. They relinquished a lead three times, once in each period. It was Winnipeg’s first loss this season when it held a lead going into the final frame.
“This group here, usually you’re up 3-2 going into the third period on the road, it’s lockdown for us,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “We just made too many mistakes. … Our execution throughout the game was just really poor.”
On one happy note, Connor’s tally in Seattle was his first power-play goal since last December. The two-time 40-goal scorer who has surpassed 30 goals in seven seasons went 62 regular-season games and 13 playoff outings without a man-advantage marker.
“It’s a huge weight off his shoulders,” Arniel said. “He hasn’t scored in a long time on the power play, but at the end of the day, our power play has still been awesome because there’s an awful lot of emphasis put on him to take him away, but it’s opened up a lot of holes the other way.”
Speaking of a weight being lifted, the Flames are coming off a rare win. Calgary, which sits last in the league standings, beat the San Jose Sharks 2-0 at home on Thursday, and the relief was palpable.
“We needed a win,” coach Ryan Huska said. “There’s a lot of things we liked about our game. I thought we did a really good job on the checking side of it, which is important for our team (and) the way we have to play, and then we found a way to get the one goal and the extra one.”
Calgary dominated a listless Sharks team in the first two periods, outshooting San Jose 13-1 in the first period before pulling ahead early in the middle frame.
Even so, the NHL’s lowest-scoring team required a strong third period from goaltender Dustin Wolf with 10 saves before a late empty-net goal sealed the victory that snapped a three-game skid.
“That was a 60-minute effort start to finish,” said Wolf, who recorded his first shutout of the season and fourth in his career. “That’s the way we want to play each and every night.”
Now to see whether the Flames can actually get on a winning streak that pulls them into the playoff picture.
“We know that one win isn’t going to do anything in this room right now. I would expect our focus to shift very quickly,” said forward Blake Coleman, who netted the winning goal. “With this condensed schedule, we’ve got opportunities to string together two, three, four, five wins and quickly change our position.”
Winnipeg has won the first two meetings this season and three consecutive overall.
