Bowness ‘disappointed & disgusted’ as Jets’ season ends with 4-1 loss in Vegas – Winnipeg

Within the 2018 Western Convention Last, a postseason run that carried a lot promise ended abruptly for the Winnipeg Jets, dropping in 5 video games to the Vegas Golden Knights.

5 years later, with a lot of the identical core nonetheless intact, the Jets have been as soon as once more dispatched by Vegas in 5 video games to finish a season that would mark the top of the staff’s aggressive window.

A 4-1 loss in Vegas Thursday night time capped off the staff’s 2022-23 marketing campaign, one which noticed the staff atop the West in January, solely to stumble down the stretch, squeak into the playoffs and grow to be the one staff to not final greater than 5 video games within the postseason.

“I’m so disillusioned and disgusted proper now,” Jets head coach Rick Bowness mentioned after their elimination. “No push again, but it surely’s the identical crap we noticed in February, it was. As quickly we have been difficult for first place and groups have been coming after us, we had no push again. This sequence we had no pushback. Their higher gamers have been so a lot better than ours, it’s not even shut.

“We received to push again. There’s received to be a push again, there’s received to be delight. You bought to have the ability to push again when issues aren’t going your approach. We had no push again. Their higher gamers have been so a lot better than ours tonight, they deserved to win.”

The Golden Knights scored simply over a minute into the sport and the Jets had no response till they have been trailing by 4 targets when the end result was already just about decided. It took the Jets greater than eight minutes simply to register their first shot of the sport.

“Not an effort factor,” mentioned defenceman Brenden Dillon. “I don’t know, simply irritating. We had some appears and it looks like they capitalized on their probabilities for certain. We simply couldn’t get one after we wanted to.”

The Jets have now misplaced eight of their final 9 playoff video games.

“You’re employed so exhausting to get into the playoffs and something can occur,” mentioned ahead Adam Lowry. “We had lots of perception on this group and lots of perception within the gamers now we have, the folks now we have on this staff that we may problem Vegas and hopefully go on a run. Sadly accidents, a bounce right here or there, and we’re executed in 5.

“We’re disillusioned with the outcomes. We battled so exhausting to get to the playoffs. You need to go on a run and also you need to make a distinction. You kinda need to make one thing magical occur and we didn’t.”

The Jets have been enjoying with out Josh Morrissey and Mark Scheifele who each missed the elimination recreation with accidents.

Nikolaj Ehlers returned to the lineup after lacking the primary 4 video games of the sequence. However he nonetheless wasn’t able to reveal what was ailing him after the top of their season.

“I felt ok to be on the market,” mentioned Ehlers. “That was yesterday that I felt fairly good. We talked about it and yeah.”

Sport 5 received off to a horrible begin for the Jets after they didn’t clear the zone within the opening minute. Brett Howden corralled the puck on the level, he handed it to Mark Stone who discovered Chander Stephenson broad open for a back-door tap-in simply 50 seconds into the competition.

The Jets managed to maintain issues pretty clear in their very own finish at some point of the primary however weren’t actually capable of generate a lot within the Vegas zone.

If there was any hope of a turnaround after 20 minutes, it vanished rapidly within the second.

After Winnipeg once more didn’t clear the zone, Stone batted a free puck to himself, caught it, then dropped it within the slot the place he was unchecked and ripped a shot over the glove of Hellebuyck to make it 2-0 simply 42 seconds into the interval.

4 minutes later, William Karlsson escaped protection, parked himself in entrance of the Jets aim and banged in a cross from Michael Amadio to make it 3-0.

Flash forward one other 4 minutes and it was Stephenson getting his second of the sport on the facility play to make it 4-0, making it abundantly clear that this was going to be the ultimate recreation of Winnipeg’s season.

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The Jets received an important likelihood to get on the board late within the second when a shot in shut from Adam Lowry was robbed by the glove of Laurent Brossoit.

After a number of uneventful minutes, Winnipeg determined to tug Hellebuyck for an additional attacker with eight minutes to go, needing a large rally.

The Jets began peppering Brossoit with photographs and at last received one previous the Vegas netminder with 5:38 to go when Blake Wheeler discovered Kyle Connor in entrance of the aim to make it 4-1 Vegas.

Winnipeg saved the stress up, doing a great job of holding the puck within the zone, resulting in a aim from Pierre-Luc Dubois as he knocked residence a rebound with 2:35 remaining.

Vegas challenged the aim for a missed recreation stoppage, arguing that Wheeler used his glove to assist win a faceoff earlier than the aim and the officers agreed, disallowing the aim and placing 3:12 again on the clock.

Winnipeg couldn’t discover the again of the online once more as the ultimate horn sounded on the Jets season, sending Vegas to the second spherical for the fourth time of their six years of existence.

Brossoit turned apart 30 photographs within the recreation, with 16 saves coming within the third interval, whereas Hellebuyck will get saddled together with his fourth straight loss after permitting 4 targets on 25 photographs.

The Jets will return residence to wash out their lockers this weekend forward of what ought to be an attention-grabbing offseason for Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, though that was additionally mentioned final 12 months and all that actually modified was the teaching employees.

Dubois is a restricted free agent, is one 12 months away from being an unrestricted free agent and his illustration has made it clear up to now that he wish to play in Montreal.

Hellebuyck, Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Brenden Dillon, Dylan DeMelo and Nino Niederreiter are all underneath contract for yet another season. Relying on what the imaginative and prescient is for the way forward for the staff, a few of these gamers could possibly be traded this summer season.

There are additionally gamers additional down the depth chart that Chevy might want to make selections about as properly. Morgan Barron, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, Kevin Stenlund, Dylan Samberg and Logan Stanley are all RFAs whereas Vladislav Namestnikov, Karson Kuhlman, Saku Maenalanen, Sam Gagner and David Rittich are UFAs.

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