Jets run out of gas in loss to Kraken to end west coast swing

WINNIPEG - Rick Bowness wasn’t about to second-guess his decision to run with the same lineup.

The Winnipeg Jets head coach had taken the taxing schedule into consideration the night before after his team built a considerable lead over the Vancouver Canucks and ultimately cruised to a 5-1 victory on Saturday before jumping on a plane bound for Seattle.

By spreading the wealth when it came to time-on-ice allocation, Bowness was hopeful the Jets would still have a little something left in the tank for the showdown with the Kraken.

As it turns out, the Jets appeared to mostly be running on fumes, at least when it came to even-strength play - where they were outscored 3-0 in what turned out to be a 3-2 loss on Sunday night to wrap up the west coast swing.

“We were half a step behind physically and then mentally, we complicated the game a little bit,” Bowness told reporters in Seattle. “When you do that, you’re on your heels a little bit too much.”

As for leaving winger Michael Eyssimont and defenceman Ville Heinola in the press box as healthy scratches for a second consecutive contest, Bowness had sound reasoning in his explanation.

“The problem with that is you’re right, but who do you take out? Everyone had a good game (Saturday) night,” said Bowness. “We were able to play four lines, so there was only one forward over 17 minutes and everyone else was in the 12 to 16 range, so no one was gassed, we didn’t think. It’s not just back to back, it was seven games in 10 days. So there was no one who deserved to come out.

“Again, if a forward had played 20 or 22 minutes, then yeah, I probably would have done something. But the four lines looked good last night and we didn’t have it.”

Even with the benefit of hindsight, Bowness did the right thing when it came to his lineup.

Quite simply, there was no obvious candidate to be removed from the lineup.

Up front, Kevin Stenlund has not only done enough to stay in, his ice time increased to nearly 15 minutes on Sunday, thanks to another strong showing in the faceoff dot, finishing a team-best 64.3%.

Playing for the first time in nearly a month, blue-liner Kyle Capobianco showed well enough on Saturday to get another look - and that would have been the case even if he hadn’t provided the game-winning goal while playing more than 16 minutes.

Some folks might look at the game sheet and see Capobianco took a pair of minor penalties in the third period of Sunday’s contest and think they may have collected some ammunition, but that simply wasn’t the case.

The first minor to Capobianco was for roughing and came only after he came to the defence of Cole Perfetti after he was taken into the boards with an on-the-numbers hit by Jared McCann.

The interference minor assessed to Capobianco was a case of mistaken identity as he had the puck on his stick when defence partner Dylan Samberg was the guy who actually interfered with McCann.

McCann wasn’t done there.

After serving his coincidental minor and drawing another, he would also deliver the goal that snapped the 2-2 tie, wiring a shot off the crossbar and in after the Jets turned the puck over in the defensive zone.

The goal came with 4:32 to go in regulation time and with no last-minute heroics available, the Jets lost and saw their record slip to 20-10-1.

Jets backup goalie David Rittich once again did his part to keep his team in the game, finishing with 34 saves.

“That goal early in the third kind of hurt us a little bit, clearly,” said Bowness, referring to a redirection from Ryan Donato that came 16 seconds into the final frame. “But we just couldn’t generate anything in the third period.

“We got it right down to the last five minutes and you hope at that point you can find a way to hang on and we didn’t.”

The Jets return home for a single home game against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night before closing out the pre-Christmas break with road games against the Boston Bruins and Washington Capitals.

“They were flying, we weren’t. That definitely wasn’t our best game and there are things we would have done differently if we could do it over,” said Scheifele. “Power play looked great, some great plays. We executed, scored on the five-on-three early. We would have liked to have a little more five-on-five. That’s something we’ve definitely got to look at.

“But we’ve got to park that one and get some rest and get ready for Ottawa.”

The only offence the Jets could manage on Sunday came with the man-advantage, with Scheifele converting a perfect slap pass from Josh Morrissey for his 19th goal of the campaign and Pierre-Luc Dubois pouncing on a rebound just outside the blue paint after a one-timer from Kyle Connor for his 15th goal.

Both Connor and Morrissey extended personal point streaks to nine games.

Morrissey is up to 31 assists in 31 games this season and continues to impress with his all-around play.

“It’s definitely something that I don’t take for granted. It’s a pretty cool achievement,” Morrissey told reporters when asked about the streak before quickly turning the attention to his teammates. “Like I’ve been saying all year, when you play with great players and give them the puck, assists, obviously you need to get them the puck and they need to score. It’s easy with the guys that we have on our team.”