Oh Road Woes
By Southerndraw
If you read my last blog entry, I made reference to having to win on the road. Let’s start off with the Montreal game. Pavelec has an off night. The Montreal pink jerseys score 7 goals. Lars Eller scores 4 goals. Eller is awarded a penalty shot. We all know what happens next. Lars Eller gets a highlight goal, it’s shown everywhere, announcers yelling “spin-o-rama” beauty. And so on and so forth. Fast forward from that grenade of a game and let’s move on to last nights action.
I have a few friends from Toronto. We do hockey chats, play NHL 12, send banter tweets back and forth, etc. I was fortunate enough last night to be in a voice chat with these “friends”, and had to hear about how fantastic the Leafs are.
First, Pavelec should have been put back in net. Yes, he had an off night the night prior, but I feel like he would have been in his Pavelec Padlock mode last night. Devil’s advocate in me then says, Mason has been wonderful in net the past 4 games. Anyway. The Jets came out physical. Threw the body around. And then Mr. Phil Kessel does what he has done all year. He scores at the 5:00 minute mark. Easy chip in for him.
The Leafs kept on pressuring, fore-checking, back-checking, and wearing down the Jets. The second period got off to a rough start also. 1:22 into the 2nd Tim Connolly let a nasty little snap shot fly and it found its way past Mason. This all happened after an initial delayed penalty, followed by another penalty on Tanner Glass. Connoly scored and Toronto went on a PP. The Jets did not manage to create a scoring chance for at least the first 10 minutes of the 2nd period. Alexander Burmistrov was able to ring a post for the Jets, but other than that it was a quiet period for Winnipeg.
The Jets record trailing after 2 periods is an astounding 0-12-2. Guess what happened in the 3rd period then? Just under four minutes into the 3rd, Mikhail Grabovski was given a beautiful pass from Kulemin and buried the puck into the net. 6 minutes later Clarke MacArthur scored on a power play goal.
I will give credit where credit is due. Toronto played a physical and clean game. The Jets did not get their first PP opportunity until the 12:00 minute mark of the 3rd. Jonas Gustavsson played very well stopping all 24 shots Winnipeg took on him. Final score 4-0.
Winnipeg really needs to get some confidence going heading into beautiful Buffalo on Saturday night. Puck drops at 6:00 p.m. The Jets really need to win this one. Follow me on Twitter @ Southerndraw81. Fly High!