Turnovers costly as Jets fall to Oilers

WINNIPEG – Paul Stastny said he could feel it coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier when it arrives.

The Winnipeg Jets dropped their fourth consecutive game on the five-game home stand on Monday night. This time it was against the Edmonton Oilers (who have now won five straight against Winnipeg), but the final score of 6-1 outlined exactly what the veteran Stastny had felt for a while.

“It’s not even about the four-game losing streak, it’s just the way we’ve been playing for 10, 15, 20 games,” Stastny said. “Sometimes we got away from it and then when you get away from it, you think you’re playing well when you’re not playing well. Sometimes, (Hellebuyck) stood on his head and saved us. 

“Some people don’t notice that. But you’re around a lot of teams or have been around the game like I have, I can tell when we’re playing good and when we’re not playing good.”

Mark Scheifele scored the lone goal for the Jets, his 19th of the season, in the loss.

Connor McDavid led the way for the Oilers, scoring three times and adding an assist. Meanwhile, Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse, and Alex Chiasson also scored for the visitors, who jumped over the Jets for second in the North.

Going over the game film will show a theme in the Oilers’ goals – chances off transition and turnovers.

“It comes to not turning the puck over and it comes to back pressure and our gap,” said Andrew Copp. “The game’s cyclical so if one is off, it kind of leads to the others being off. So I think they’re just taking advantage of turnovers and even if it’s in the offensive zone, it feels like they’re ready to go play offense after a 45-second shift so we’ve got to be aware of that.”

Edmonton scored the game’s opening goal late in a fast-paced first period, as Adam Larsson teed up a one-timer for Chiasson, who made no mistake from the left circle, beating Connor Hellebuyck on the stick side. Chiasson’s eighth of the season, and 100th of his career, came with 3:37 left in the first period.

Then with just under 90 seconds to go in the opening period, McDavid chipped home a loose puck just outside the crease for his 26th of the season to give Edmonton a 2-0 lead.

“The score obviously was bad, but if you look at the first half, when it was 2-0 or 3-0, we weren’t playing that bad,” said Stastny. “We’ve just got to take a look at ourselves. To know what works and what doesn’t work. Kind of have a game plan and simplify it.”

McDavid was at it again in the second, as his fake slap shot from the left wing froze Hellebuyck briefly, leaving just enough space for the Oilers captain to slide the puck along the ice past the Jets goaltender. It was 3-0 Oilers just 3:35 into the middle period.

Draisaitl pushed that lead to 4-0 when he finished a 2-on-1 with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. The goal was Draisaitl’s 23rd of the season and 488th point in his career, making him the all-time leader in scoring among German NHLers.

Both goals were scored off the rush.

Video: EDM@WPG: Scheifele wires a shot for a power-play goal

“We’ve probably gotten away with it in a style of game that was played by the opponents and by us, and that’s true of the regular season and it’s played equally by both teams,” said head coach Paul Maurice. “I think what’s true of our game was also true of our opponent’s games and then there was a gear change and it happens at different times over an 82-game schedule.”

After Nurse made it 5-0, the Jets were able to get on the board on the power play.

Scheifele wired home a wrist shot on the Jets’ second man advantage of the night. The goal was the 199th of Scheifele’s career, and 499th point.

It also snapped a three-game drought for the power play, which had come up empty on its last nine opportunities.

McDavid completed the hat trick with 3:30 to go in the second period, this one on a breakaway that resulted from a turnover high in the Edmonton zone. That made the score 6-1, and when the buzzer sounded at the end of the second, it was the end of the night for Hellebuyck, who had 17 saves on 23 shots.

“It was enough. I didn’t want Connor skating off the ice in that game because he’s made a bunch of saves — I didn’t have him for any of them,” said Maurice. “I didn’t want him coming off the ice during the period and making the skate so, after two, he had had enough work.”

Laurent Brossoit came on in relief of Hellebuyck in the third, stopping all seven shots he faced, but the damage was done.

Video: POSTGAME | Andrew Copp

A lot of the conversation the last couple weeks has been around ramping up for the postseason, but Maurice feels the Jets still need to take that step.

“We missed the gear change coming off the road,” Maurice said, referencing the 4-1-0 road trip that preceded the current five-game home stand.

“We need to make a decision based on the game that is being played now, not the game that was played two weeks ago,” he said. “So that gear change happened and it’s happened with the two teams ahead of us in the standings in the division, and tonight it blew up on us.” 

The final game of the home stand comes on Wednesday against these same Oilers. 

The Jets are in a four-game losing streak and are without Adam Lowry and Nikolaj Ehlers. 

Their confidence may be shaken, but it’s certainly not broken.

“We feel like we’ve got a good hockey team in there and that we’re not playing up to our potential,” said Copp. “So there’s no way around it. There’s no easy fix. You’ve just go to go straight through the adversity and straight through the wall and just dig in and work through it.”