close
close

The high-flying Jets score early, often to pound the Wings, 6-2

The high-flying Jets score early, often to pound the Wings, 6-2

Detroit — The Red Wings found out Wednesday how well the Winnipeg Jets are playing these days.

The Jets won their ninth straight 10 game of the season, jumping out to an early lead and eventually defeating the Wings, 6-2.

The Jets jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period, saw the Wings pull back with two power-play goals in the second period, but pulled away in the third period to snap the Wings’ winless streak (4 -5-1) in three games.

“You can’t have games like that,” captain Dylan Larkin said. “Most of the forwards were passengers tonight. We didn’t help ourselves breaking the puck. We can’t be outscored 5-0 (excluding special teams) on home ice even against a good team with very skilled forwards. dat. the puck too much and let them do what they wanted and really exposed us.”

Larkin and Alex DeBrincat had power-play goals in the second period — Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider had assists on both goals — to cut Winnipeg’s lead to 3-2.

But Winnipeg’s Nino Niederreiter scored 10 seconds into the third period and Neal Pionk scored his second goal of the night (third of the season) on the power play at 7:19 and Colin Miller scored his second goal at just seconds after a Jets game. the power play expired at 10:25 to extend the lead to 6-2.

Niederreiter’s goal was a smash. He beat defenseman Jeff Petry on the puck in the corner, went to the net and basically put the puck through the Wings sticks and past goaltender Alex Lyon and past the skate of defenseman Ben Chiarot into the net.

“It was a tough thing to watch,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “For their identity, they throw a lot of shots along the yellow and get there on the forecheck. Exactly the way it broke, going through two of our sticks and the goalie’s stick and deep into the blue paint on our skate, it’s hard to track.

“(The power play) got us back into it, which makes the third period even more disappointing. You get those goals and we talked about the competition increasing after the first (period) and you feel pretty good in the third, you feel the momentum and then it was a tough first goal against him.”

BOX SCORE: Jets 6, Red Wings 2

Larkin’s one-timer off a Raymond pass, Larkin’s fifth goal, cut the lead to 3-1 at 8:13. DeBrincat deflected a Raymond shot past goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (Commerce), DeBrincat’s fifth goal at 17:40.

Kyle Connor (Shelby Twsp.), Pionk and Gabriel Vilardi scored in Winnipeg’s first big period — Connor added two assists as he extended his season-opening point streak to 10 games — and Hellebuyck made 19 saves.

“The three goals in the first period were just one-on-one battles that we beat,” Lalonde said. “Two runs where we identified the right guy, and the guy beat our guy to the net for an easy goal. And a faceoff goal, a simple assignment, and he was beaten to the net.”

Against a Jets team that doesn’t show many weaknesses at all, the mistakes were costly.

“Definitely not as sharp as we need to be to win games against the top teams,” forward JT Compher said. “When you’re not as sharp and you let skill take over, and we gave them too much hustle and too much space in the defensive zone, they were able to take advantage of that.”

Wednesday’s loss ended the Wings’ first month of the season and the first 10-game stretch with a 4-5-1 record. The schedule was tough, but the Wings weren’t entirely satisfied with the way they played.

“It was very up and down,” Larkin said. “We played some good teams and it would have been nice to finish this month with a point or two, but our details weren’t good enough. I stressed the start (of the season) and the start wasn’t great, but we dug in. we’re going out out of that hole and I’ll be excited and interested to see how we respond to this game and really the last three games where we’ve put points up there.”

Larkin feels the Wings are searching for their identity and have areas where they can improve.

“We weren’t very good on special teams and (we) won battles,” Larkin said. “Our goaltending was good, it was a highlight. We didn’t score enough five-on-five and we weren’t strong enough. You saw some glimpses, but we weren’t tough enough around the other teams. goalkeepers.

“Everything is fixable and we have the personnel to do it. But we need, like last year, to figure out what we are as a team and start gaining traction and playing to an identity.”

Lalonde wants to see more physicality.

“We had a formula and a recipe for success,” Lalonde said. “You need to commit to combat a little more. There’s a formula there, but we need to get to it more.”

[email protected]

@tkulfan