Rick Bowness called it one of the best games of the season for the Winnipeg Jets.
On the shot clock, the team’s head coach would be right. The Jets more than doubled up the Minnesota Wild, 48-23, pelting Wild backup Marc-Andre Fleury from the opening puck drop to the final whistle.
“We dominated the game,” Bowness said. “Fleury was outstanding.”
Fleury was the reason it wasn’t the Jets who were celebrating a rare victory these days when that final horn sounded, stopping 46 shots in a performance that harkened to the 2018 Western Conference Final.
Despite the lopsided shot total against a team that played a heavy and hard game the night before, the Wild won where it matters most, improving to 9-0-2 in their past 11 games with a 4-2 victory to move six points clear of Winnipeg in the Central Division standings.
“If we play like that, we’ll take it,” Bowness said. “Some nights you just don’t get any puck luck and right now we’re not getting any luck. But I’ll take that effort and the way we played against anybody all year.”
The time to right the sinking ship is fading quickly, with just 17 games left and the Calgary Flames (four points back) and Nashville Predators (six points back with four games in hand) hot on their heels for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Winnipeg’s overall record fell to 36-26-3, and just 2-7-2 in their past 11 games dating back to Feb. 16. They’ve lost all three meetings against the Wild this season, outscored a combined 14-4.
And now they’ll face a murderer’s row over their next four games, including stops in Tampa, Florida and Carolina, only to return from that trip to host the league-best Boston Bruins next Thursday.
“It definitely sucks,” Kyle Connor said, pacing the Jets alongside Adam Lowry with six shots. “But that’s hockey. We’re going to have those nights. We got to keep the confidence high in this group. Putting up that many shots, that many Grade-As, you’re going to take that most nights.”
Only Brenden Dillon and Saku Maenalanen failed to register a shot on goal for Winnipeg.
The Jets jumped on the Wild from the onset, building up a 10-1 lead in shots by the midway mark of the first period.
But in a tale as old as time, Winnipeg’s inability to score bit them, with the Wild, struggling to create anything offensively, scoring on their third shot of the game as Marcus Foligno uncorked a beauty from the high slot to make it 1-0 at 14:14.
It’d get worse when Frederick Gaudreau notched the 2-0 goal 7:06 into the second.
Hope came from an unlikely source as Logan Stanley, who reportedly requested to be shipped out of town prior to the deadline, scored his first of the season and just the third of his NHL career to pull the Jets to 2-1 just 20 seconds later.
Stanley’s goal was the first Minnesota had allowed in regulation in more than three games, a span of 198:33 dating back to the first period against the Vancouver Canucks last Thursday.
The momentum he created for the 13,148 in attendance would quickly fade, however, as Connor Hellebuyck couldn’t stop Ryan Hartman’s innocent-looking wrist shot 55 seconds after Stanley’s strike to restore the two-goal cushion.
Hellebuyck came into the game allowing 19 goals over his past four starts and watched another three get past him on Wednesday in a 19-save effort.
“He’ll figure it out,” Bowness said of his netminder. “He’s a great goaltender, he’s a tremendous competitor. He’s gotta figure it out and he will.”
Nino Niederreiter hit the 400-point milestone with his 20th goal of the season to bring the Jets back within one heading into the third, gloving down a puck in front before putting it past Fleury.
There was one problem, though — the Wild basically don’t lose when leading heading into the final frame, with a 23-0-1 record coming into the game in that department.
Despite peppering Fleury with 14 more shots, it was Mason Shaw who clinched the win late, scoring into the empty net after Mark Scheifele couldn’t handle a pass in the offensive zone.
Meanwhile, Winnipeg’s struggling power play continued to labour on Wednesday, going 0-for-3.
They couldn’t convert on six chances in a 3-2 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks on Monday and are 6-for-41 (6.8%) since their slide began with a 3-1 loss to Columbus last month.
“You have to move the feet and you have to move the puck,” Bowness said. “They jam up around the front of the net. Sometimes when it comes to the point you don’t see anything because they’re al right there. The puck just has to move quicker. We have to be ready to shoot it, and have a net presence. We can’t bobble pucks.”
The Wild had just one chance with the man advantage and failed to cash it in.
NOTES: Pierre-Luc Dubois will not be on the team’s charter when he takes off tomorrow for Florida. Dubois, who just returned on Monday after missing three games with a nagging lower-body injury, is now nursing an upper-body ailment he picked up during Monday’s loss to San Jose. Bowness said it’s possible Dubois links up with the team later in the trip.
sbilleck@postmedia.com
Twitter: @scottbilleck
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