Jets fire 48 shots on goal, but fall to Minnesota to close home stand

WINNIPEG -Rick Bowness may have been frustrated - and surely, after a 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild, he was - but that wasn't the message he had for the Winnipeg Jets after a loss that saw them fire 48 shots at Marc-Andre Fleury.
His message was a completely different tone.
"It's one of the best games we've played all year. We dominated the game," said Bowness. "Some nights you just don't get any puck luck and right now we're not getting any puck. But I'll take that effort and the way we played against anybody all year."
Unfortunately for the Jets, it was the second straight time on the home stand that the opposing goaltender stifled their offence. It was San Jose's James Reimer making 36 saves on Monday, and then Fleury's season-high 46 saves dropped the Jets to 36-26-3.
"Eventually, that puck is going to go in," said Bowness. "We've seen that two games in a row that we dominated the game and lost by a goal. That's hockey."

Logan Stanley and Nino Niederreiter scored Winnipeg's two goals in the loss, while Minnesota improves to 9-0-2 in their last 11.
"It's disappointing to come away with the loss," said Stanley. "We thought we played good and did a lot of good things. There is definitely a lot of stuff we can build on."
Despite Winnipeg's 10-2 advantage in shots early in the contest, Minnesota's Marcus Foligno opened the scoring with 5:46 left in the first. His shot, off a backhand saucer pass from Oskar Sundqvist, beat Connor Hellebuyck high on the blocker side to make it 1-0 for the visitors.
An early dose of adversity for the Jets, who had controlled play to that point, and would throughout the game. In fact, they didn't allow a high-danger chance against at five-on-five in the opening 20 minutes, while generating five of their own - according to Natural Stat Trick.
"It definitely sucks," said Kyle Connor, who tied with Adam Lowry for the team-lead in shots with six. "We got to keep the confidence high in this group. Putting up that many shots, that many grade As, you're going to take that most nights."
The Jets kept the pressure up in the second and held a 22-7 edge in shots on goal but, once again, it would be the Wild lighting the lamp next. Frederick Gaudreau got behind the Jets defence and squeezed his 12th of the season through Hellebuyck with 7:06 of the clock.

Just 30 seconds later, Stanley put the Jets on the board. He circled the Minnesota net and when Vladislav Namestnikov's backhand was stopped by Marc-Andre Fleury, Stanley was right there to fire home his first of the season. It was the first goal the Wild had given up in 198:33 of game play.
"It was good by Vladdy to get it on net," said Stanley. "It was an easy one for me to put in."
Namestnikov slotted in at centre between Nikolaj Ehlers and Blake Wheeler on Wednesday, as Pierre-Luc Dubois - originally a game-time decision - didn't play against Minnesota with an upper-body injury.
Bowness said that Dubois won't travel with the Jets to Florida on Thursday, but the hope is that the forward can join the team at some point on the three-game trek.
As for Namestnikov's performance at centre, he won 60 percent of his face-offs.
"In Tampa, we drafted him as a centre," said Bowness. "He played a lot of centre for us in Tampa. Without Dubie, that was an easy decision."
The change in momentum was short-lived though, as less than a minute later Ryan Hartman beat Hellebuyck through the five hole on a two-on-one rush to restore Minnesota's two-goal cushion at 3-1.
It's a shot that doesn't typically get by Hellebuyck, and Bowness said nothing needed to be said to the 2020 Vezina Trophy winner afterward.
"He's a great goaltender, he's a tremendous competitor. He's gotta figure it out and he will," said Bowness. "Right now, that's what's happening. We're giving up a goal like that and we're losing by one goal. The first goal against the other night against San Jose, those things don't normally go in our net. Right now they're going in and that's fine. We have to find a way to put the puck in their net."

Once again, the Jets tried to wrestle back some momentum, as Niederreiter caught a chest-high pass from Nate Schmidt, spun in front of Fleury, and swatted home his 20th of the season with 2:45 to go in the second. The goal made it 3-2, and also gave Niederreiter - who played just over five seasons with the Wild from 2013-2018 - his 400th career point.
But that's as close as the Jets would get, as even a late power play with 9:31 remaining didn't generate the offence the home side was looking for. Winnipeg went 0-for-3 on the man advantage.
"You have to move the feet and you have to move the puck. They jam up around the front of the net," said Bowness. "The puck just has to move quicker. We have to be ready to shoot it, and have a net presence. We can't bobble pucks."
A bobbled puck at 6-on-5 late in the game led to an empty netter for Mason Shaw to round out the scoring.
Now the Jets head on the road for three games in four nights, beginning on Saturday against the Florida Panthers.
"If you play like that every night, there's no way the puck's not going to go in," said Bowness. "We just have to play like that. We know what we're up against. We haven't lost that eighth spot right now so we have to fight to keep it."