Note: If you watched the first 19 minutes of yesterday’s game 4 between the Jets and Blues in St. Louis you’d think that the NHL club of Winnipeg would have returned to Manitoba with a 3-1 series edge. But hockey is a 60 minute game so they instead returned with the series tied 2-2 after giving up five straight goals to fall 5-1. For the second straight game Connor Hellebuyck got the hook. The team is back in the city and will hold an optional practice at 12 noon. Stay tuned for the Practice Report.
Note II: A pair of Jets prospects were having big nights on Sunday in the OHL Conference Finals. Over in the East it was 2023 1st rounder Colby Barlow who continued his torrid playoff pace finishing with one goal and three assists in a big Oshawa win as they took a 2-0 series lead over Barrie. He is tied for the most points in the playoffs right now. Over in the West it was a big night for 2023 5th rounder Jacob Julien who had two goals and two assists (his biggest offensive night ever in the playoffs) as his monster London squad won their tenth straight game. They have yet to lose in the post-season.
Jets news:
Sportsnet: How Jets’ Hellebuyck responds after another rough start will define series vs. Blues. That was the sentiment after game 3 and we saw the results in game 4 but Jacob is right. This game 5 will be quite the referendum on 37 which is fair but it should also be one on the rest of the team. I’m actually fairly sure, based on what we’ve seen to date, that they will actually respond in the right manner but we won’t know till late Wednesday night if that is the case or not.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
Winnipeg Sun: Points from the point: Blues defencemen racking them up in the playoffs. The production from the back end is quite something.
Winnipeg Sun: Not again: Jets’ Hellebuyck shelled in back-to-back games. Definitely a sense of Déjà vu right now.
Winnipeg Sun: ‘We unravelled’: Jets a rag-tag version of themselves in St. Louis. The key is arresting said unraveling in order to stop the bleeding.
Winnipeg Sun: All square: Blues hold serve at home, beat the Jets 5-1 in Game 4. While the Blues winning the game isn’t a shocker, the manner in which they did likely was.
Winnipeg Free Press: Blues even series in afternoon drubbing. (Paywall). Kenny was in the building yesterday afternoon and filed this report on what he saw go down.
Winnipeg Free Press: Absence of top players spotlights Jets costly mistake. (Paywall). Missing 50 goals definitely hurts but this team won the first couple of games without them and a bunch during the final stretch towards the playoffs without Vilardi.
The Athletic: Another big Blues win over the Jets has series tied 2-2. (Paywall). Murat and Jeremy combined to provide you with their takeaways.
TheScore: Jets’ Arniel ‘100% confident’ in Hellebuyck after 2nd straight pull. May have been a weee bit of a more intense headline if the Jets bench boss had said anything other than confirming his faith in his netminder.
Jets video:
Sportsnet: How can the Jets reclaim momentum in first-round series vs. Blues? Nick Nypreos joins Faizel Khamisa and Danielle Michaud to recap the St. Louis Blues’ Game 4 victory over the Winnipeg Jets.
TSN: ‘This is not the Connor Hellebuyck that we saw in the regular season’. After back-to-back blowout losses in which Connor Hellebuyck has given up 11 goals over those games, the TSN Hockey panel discusses what’s stood out about Hellebuyck’s last two performances, and explains how the Jets’ defence has been hanging him out to dry. The panel also looks at what the Blues are doing to shut down Mark Scheifele.
