It has been over a month since these next-day takeaways have been covering a loss, and with the Winnipeg Jets dropping their latest game 2-1 to the Nashville Predators, their 11-game win streak was snapped. On the second night of the back-to-back, there were some standout performances and some lackluster performances, with plenty to take away from the loss.
Eric Comrie was brilliant in the loss:
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Eric Comrie didn’t get the run support he deserved, resulting in a loss. Eric Comrie has been providing quality starts as of late, and this game was no different.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
He stopped 28/30 in this one, including a miraculous toe save late in the third period to keep the game within striking distance.
“Coms was good too, had to be, and again, we didn’t give him the run support he needed,” Arniel said after the game.
Comrie now owns a record of 6-8-1, but with a .910 SV%, he’s provided quality backup play so far this season and will look to continue that down the stretch.
Special teams cost the Jets:
Special teams cost the Jets in this game, which hasn’t been the case much at all this season.
Their power play went 0-for-4, and the Preds scored on one of their three power play opportunities. The Jets’ dynamic power play was one of the keys to their 11-game winning streak, and it ended up being the reason their streak came to an end in last night’s game.
“Special teams can be the difference in the game and it certainly was tonight,” Neal Pionk said after the game.
“At the end of the day, I liked it tonight, a lot better than I saw last night so there was a vast improvement in how we were moving,” Arniel said on the recent struggles of the power play.
Winnipeg’s power play entered the break clicking above 33%, one of the best in NHL history, and has come out of the break 0-for-12.
In last night’s game, they had a 1:54 five-on-three, and while they were unable to convert, it looked wildly improved from the two-minute five-on-three the night before against the Ottawa Senators.
While concern may begin to creep in through this slump, I still see a power play that is generating quality chances, and this game against Nashville was a great example. If the chances are there, the goals will come, and I’m willing to bank on the 55-game sample we saw before the break of the power play being elite, rather than the four-game sample we have seen since.
Jets are 1-5 on the second night of back-to-backs this season:
The Jets have lost five times on the second night of a back-to-back this season, and Comrie has been in the net for all of them. The goals he received in those five losses, in order, have been: 1, 2, 2, 1, 1.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
The good news for the Jets is that they only have two more back-to-backs this season on March 6/7, against the Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils, and April 12/13, against the Chicago Blackhawks and Edmonton Oilers.
It will be interesting to see how the Jets handle those, with the “stronger” opponents coming on the second night of both instances. They flipped Comrie and Hellebuyck once this year in an LA/COL back-to-back, which resulted in their only win on the second night of a double-header scenario.
Up next:
The Jets will now regroup and return home for just one game, Saturday night March 1, against the Philadelphia Flyers. After that, they’ll head on a four-game East Coast road trip to begin the first full week of March.
Stay tuned to Illegalcurve.com for all the latest Jets and Moose news throughout the weekend!
