Jets’ fate is in their own hands Team on the brink needs to raise intensity and desire to keep season alive By: Ken Wiebe Posted: 5:20 PM CDT Monday, Apr. 29, 2024

The Winnipeg Jets once again find themselves at the proverbial fork in the road where we’ll find out if actions speak louder than words.

With the playoff undertaker lurking not-so-subtly around the corner, the Jets have an opportunity to stand up and be counted.

To take the first step in erasing the growing narrative that this core group can’t get the job done when the lights are shining brightest.

Down 3-1 in this first-round matchup with a Colorado Avalanche club that is suddenly clicking on all cylinders, the Jets used Monday to lick their wounds and try to reset as they prepare for what is clearly the most important game of the season.

Game 5 is scheduled for Canada Life Centre on Tuesday, with puck drop around 8:50 p.m. CT.

The Jets’ lot in life is a difficult one, as no team likes to have zero margin for error.

Thanks to myriad issues, the Jets are in win-or-go-home territory for the first time this season and their resolve is about to be put to the ultimate test.

After capturing the first game of this best-of-seven by scoring seven times on 23 shots on goal against Alexandar Georgiev, the Jets haven’t come close to putting together anything resembling a 60-minute game.

Their breakouts are disjointed and they’ve strayed so far from their structure that they have shown very few signs of being the team that allowed the fewest goals (199) in the NHL this season and won the William M. Jennings Trophy.

They’ve lacked discipline and it’s come back to haunt them, with the Avalanche scoring six power play goals in 14 opportunities and scoring once more mere moments after a Jets’ player came out of the penalty box but didn’t have time to get back into the play.

Offensively, the Jets are having trouble getting to the blue paint and even worse, they’re not generating many high-danger chances.

Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who received his fourth Vezina Trophy nomination Monday morning, hasn’t been able to erase enough of the mistakes that are happening in front of him either.

Nobody had Hellebuyck allowing 19 goals through four games and sporting a goals-against average of 5.22 on their bingo card, though the support in front of him has been suspect.

It’s been said countless times the Jets will have trouble having success if they don’t receive above-average to elite netminding and clearly, Hellebuyck must find another level.

Plus, the presumed advantage in the depth department hasn’t ended up being the case through four games either.

So, where do the Jets turn from here?

“Listen, we can all say all the words in the world and say all of the right things. Our play (on Tuesday) night will dictate everything. It will,” Jets head coach Rick Bowness said Monday. “We can say this and make all the correct comments and tell you all of the things that you want to hear, but everything will be decided on what our eyes tell us (on Tuesday). Not our ears.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

“There are just certain areas of our game that are normally a strength and we’re not doing those things.”–Rick Bowness

On a day when Bowness was left to answer again questions about adjustments and changing up the game plan, he reiterated his belief the most important battle the Jets are about to wage has a limited amount to do with Xs and Os and far more to do with intensity and determination.

“We’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing and that’s not an adjustment. Let’s get back to doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” said Bowness. “The way we want to play, there are just certain areas of our game that are normally a strength and we’re not doing those things.”

While it’s true the Jets need to change some things Bowness is responsible for — whether that’s the lineup they deploy or the tactics they focus on — if his team doesn’t find a way to execute better and dig deeper, a long off-season is about to begin long before this group wanted it to.

“We’ve got to look in the mirror at ourselves as players and compete harder first and then we’ll go with the strategic things later,” said Jets defenceman Neal Pionk.

Jets captain Adam Lowry was asked about the season-long mantra of finding solutions, not looking for excuses coming in handy when faced with a daunting task like this one.

“Like I said, there’s areas of our game we need to clean up. There’s areas that we know need to be better. It’s not letting guys off the hook, it’s being accountable and finding ways to kind of stop some of their best players,” said Lowry. “Everyone in this room would agree that we all can play better and that’s what we’re going to look to do (on Tuesday).”

While it’s true this group doesn’t necessarily need to carry the weight of past playoff failures into Tuesday’s game, the problem with dismissing them outright is a good chunk of this core has been around for the majority of the disappointments that date back to the Western Conference final in 2018.

“Everyone in this room would agree that we all can play better and that’s what we’re going to look to do.”–Adam Lowry

The odds of the Jets winning only one playoff series since that time would have been astronomically low, but here we are.

Five seasons later and the only time the Jets actually advanced past the first round was 2021, when they delivered three overtime wins in a four-game sweep over Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers.

More concerning is the Jets haven’t won a single playoff game since suffering a loss in a series since 2020, when Winnipeg won Game 2 of the qualifying round matchup with the Calgary Flames after dropping the opener.

When facing elimination, the Jets are 0-5, dating back to the aforementioned Western Conference final.

Labels, while sometimes unfair, are often difficult to shed.

The truth is the Jets don’t have time to live in the past and lament the lost opportunities.

No matter how this series ends up, there’s one thing they simply cannot afford to do — and that’s go down without a fight.

A no-show when facing elimination is simply not an option.

Not if this group wants to stay together.

That’s a part of the history the Jets need to learn from and if they don’t, general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff is going to have no choice but to make some difficult decisions in the off-season.

“If you just live in the past, you lose sight of the present and what’s going on,” said Lowry. “Every playoff series is different and every playoff year is different, teams are different. There’s certainly going to be a narrative that has happened and the history backs it up. We’re focused on this series with the Avalanche and how we get out of this and how we get the win in Game 5. That’s all we can focus on.”

Narrowing that focus to finding a way to get the series back to Denver is Job 1.

“It’s one of those things you can’t look at the task as being so unmanageable you have to have some belief. And I believe we have a lot of belief in our group and our ability to get out of this,” said Lowry. “We know we need to play better than we’ve shown the last couple of games. There’ve been spurts where we’ve played better.

“But two-thirds of a game or a third of a game, that’s not going to get it done against an elite team like the Avs.”

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

X; @WiebesWorld