Jets 'frustrated' as winless skid extends to five after loss to Panthers

WINNIPEG - Trading offensive chances with the National Hockey League's highest scoring team is a dangerous game.
The Winnipeg Jets (17-15-7) have fire power, for sure, but it wasn't enough on Tuesday night as the Panthers outscored the Jets 5-3 - extending Winnipeg's winless skid to five games.
"Just inconsistent play," said Jets veteran forward Paul Stastny. "It just seems like we shoot ourselves in the foot and get away from the game a little bit. Almost that we're just trying to play for offence too much.
"You allow five goals, you might win once or twice this year, but you shouldn't expect that."

The task didn't get any easier when the Jets announced an hour before game-time that top defenceman Josh Morrissey wouldn't play due to COVID-19 protocol, meaning the Jets were without Morrissey and Dylan DeMelo (upper-body, day-to-day) on the blue line.
The duo usually takes the lion's share of the minutes each night.
"You're putting some guys in positions where they haven't seen anything like this," said interim head coach Dave Lowry, who added Ville Heinola (who hasn't played since January 8 with the Manitoba Moose) to the line-up on short notice.
"To find out you're going in today and he was a game-time decision and he didn't know and in fairness to him, I thought he did a lot of good things," Lowry said. " He hasn't been with us for a great amount of time but he will understand that the battle and the defending and that is a priority for us and he'll continue to learn."

The Jets hung with the Panthers for a while, as the teams traded the game's first seven goals through the first 40 minutes.
It's fun hockey to watch, with chances at both ends and the former Southeast Division rivals combining for 22 high-danger chances at five-on-five (according to Natural Stat Trick), but that's not the type of game that gives the Jets success.
"It sounds simple, but sometimes it's just communicating out there," said Stastny. "If we're in the right position, where if someone does make a mistake, someone's underneath them to protect him and then we can kind of make up for that. But too many times it seems like one lost guy leads to a wide-open guy and it shouldn't be like that."
Florida (29-9-5) opened the scoring 2:09 into the first the Mason Marchment's third of the season, a redirect of Anton Lundell's pass from the left wing.
The Jets, playing their first home game in over a month, responded with Paul Stastny's ninth of the campaign as he banged home a loose puck off the pad of Sergei Bobrovsky.
The tie lasted for all over 3:47, as Marchment snapped home his second of the night. This one came from the slot, beating Connor Hellebuyck high on the stick side.
Again, the Jets got back on even terms. Cole Perfetti patiently waited for a seam to open from the left wing side, sliding a pass under the stick of Aaron Ekblad and onto the tape of Kyle Connor. He beat Bobrovsky with a move to his backhand for his 23rd of the season.
It was Perfetti's first career NHL assist, and his patience showed a growing confidence in his ninth NHL game.
"I definitely think the more you play, the more you get comfortable, the more confidence you get," said Perfetti. "It's a pretty tough league and it's going to take a long time to learn, but definitely feeling like it's slowing down just a hair and getting a little bit more confidence to make some more plays."

The Panthers took the lead back with Anton Lundell's 10th of the season before the end of the first.
Pierre-Luc Dubois tied things at three 3:30 into the second with his team-leading ninth power play goal of the season. He finished off another great pass from Perfetti, as the 20-year-old Perfetti maneuvered around a falling Radko Gudas before slipping a short pass to Dubois in front of the Florida net.
"The chemistry he's built with this linemates, I think makes it a little easier for him and he's starting to make more plays offensively," said Stastny, who was on the ice for that goal. "When you're a smart player, it just has to happen once for you to remember it and for it to click in your head and you kind of learn from that forever."
That's the last time the Jets lit the lamp, but the Panthers weren't done.
Carter Verhaeghe gave the visitors the lead for good with 10:18 left in the middle frame. He pounced on a rebound after Hellebuyck turned away Ekblad's blast from the point.
Florida added insurance in the third with Sam Bennett finishing a rebound as well, after Anthony Duclair rushed into the Jets zone with 7:50 left in regulation.
The Jets close out the short two-game home stand on Thursday against the Vancouver Canucks.
"You have to be committed to playing without the puck, you have to be committed to playing a certain way," Lowry said. "If you get away from it, usually you're not on the right end of it and that's just something that we'll talk about tomorrow.
"We've got to just clean up some of the details in our game."