Tough start prevents determined Jets from comeback in Detroit

A bad start cost the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night, and no matter how hard they fought the rest of the way against the Detroit Red Wings, they just couldn't get back on even footing.
Winnipeg (26-14-1) trailed 3-0 after the opening 15:27 at Little Caesars Arena, and despite reaching scores of 4-3, 5-4, and 6-5, the equalizer just never came.
An empty netter gave the Red Wings a 7-5 victory, and snapped the Jets win streak at five.
"We've been giving up way too many chances against," said Nate Schmidt, who scored his fourth of the season in the loss. "It's a little bit uncharacteristic of us right now. We're getting all of the offence we can get. We have enough to win in a game like tonight. It just comes down to us as guys to realize that's not going to be the brand that we can win with."

The offence was pretty evenly spread through the Jets line-up, with five different goal scorers, and a total of four Jets picking up two points on the night - Nikolaj Ehlers, Cole Perfetti, Mark Scheifele, and Neal Pionk.

But defensively, the Jets gave up far more than they'd like, especially in the opening 15 minutes.
"The first few chances we gave up were Grade As, right from the slot with traffic," said Sam Gagner, who had one of Winnipeg's goals. "The last 50 minutes we outplayed them, out chanced them, had a lot of zone time and a lot of possession. But it's tough when you spot them a few."
All the analytical numbers from Natural Stat Trick, especially at five-on-five, were heavily in the Jets favour, as Gagner pointed out. Winnipeg doubled Detroit in high-danger chances (14-7), and more than doubled the Red Wings in expected goal percentage (2.55 to 1.12)
At the end of the night, though, all that matters were the two numbers on the scoreboard: 7-5.
"We gave up some chances early that we never give up," said head coach Rick Bowness. "It was their night. The puck was going into the net for them. We had more than enough chances to win the hockey game. We had 85 shot attempts, we had a ton of scoring chances."
Detroit's quick start began with a Jake Wallman wrister 1:16 into the game, which beat a screened Connor Hellebuyck to give Wallman goes in back-to-back games. Next, Jonatan Berggren converted a backhand pass from former Jet Andrew Copp to make it 2-0 just 5:05 after the Wallman tally. Oskar Sundqvist made it 3-0 just after a Karson Kuhlman hooking penalty expired, and it came with 4:33 left in the opening frame.

The Jets didn't go quietly into the intermission, as they poured on the pressure late in the first. A long shift in the offensive zone with a full change of forwards midway through the shift, resulted in Pionk's wrist shot beating Ville Husso with 2:43 on the clock. The goal, Pionk's seventh, set a new career-high in that category.
"Any (time) you are down three after the first (stretch) of the game, it's tough," Schmidt said. "We knew we hadn't played our best game, but to still have a chance to still win, you'll take it."
Winnipeg kept the pressure up to start the second, but one bobbled puck at the blue line led to a Red Wings rush the other way, with Dominik Kubalik finishing off his 13th of the season just under three minutes in, beating a sliding Hellebuyck to the post to make it 4-1.
Gagner got the Jets back within two, on the same night he was honoured by the home side for his 129 games in a Detroit jersey over the last three seasons. When David Gustafsson corralled a missed one-timer by Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, Gagner found space in front of the net and converted on the Gustafsson backhand pass for his eighth of the campaign.
"Every line going over the boards was doing a job creating a lot of offence, but not spending much time in our own end as well," said Gagner. "Just spotting them a lead that we have to learn from. We've talked a lot in here about being better off the start. It's an area for growth and we're pushing forward."
Nate Schmidt pulled Winnipeg within one 2:22 later, as he pinched down and tapped in a backhand feed by Perfetti to make it 4-3. That goal also gave the defensive group, as a whole, 23 goals on the season - after scoring 24 all last year.
"Our guys have done a really good job at covering for us to give us that confidence to go and do it," said Schmidt. "Our guys have done a much better job this year of just making ourselves available and not just floating up the ice."

A five-on-three power play for the Red Wings late in the second set up Dylan Larkin to restore a two-goal cushion. His 14th of the season came with 2:22 on the clock, leaving the Jets down 5-3 going into the third.
The goals kept coming. Nikolaj Ehlers scored off the rush 33 seconds in, only to have Detroit's Robby Fabbri respond with a deflection 1:19 later.
It was the last puck to get by Hellebuyck, who made 16 saves on 22 shots, though Bowness isn't putting any of the loss on the 2020 Vezina Trophy winner, and Michigan product.
"He's won us a lot of games this year. He's going to win us some more," Bowness said. "We could have scored enough goals to win that game tonight. Simple as that."
It stayed that way until 5:05 to go, when Scheifele pounced on a rebound for his team-leading 24th of the campaign, a loose puck created after Pierre-Luc Dubois hit the post. Again, the Jets were within one at 6-5.
With Hellebuyck pulled for an extra skater in the final 2:35, the Jets had more chances - deflections in front, a Pionk wrister ringing off the post, and shots from the point through a maze of bodies, but it just wasn't to be.
Lucas Raymond tapped a breakaway chance into an empty net with 80 seconds left to round out the scoring.
Next up, the Jets take on the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday.