The Winnipeg Jets fell to 16-9-2 on the season with a loss in San Jose.
The Winnipeg Jets took on the San Jose Sharks from SAP Center on Tuesday evening in the second stop of a three-game-in-four-night run through California.
Winnipeg turned to Laurent Brossoit in the first game of the back-to-back, as Connor Hellebuyck will take Wednesday's game against Pierre-Luc Dubois and the Los Angeles Kings.
The Stanley Cup winning goaltender played well, but ultimately gave up one more goal than his counterpart Mackenzie Blackwood, dropping his third game of the year by way of a 2-1 final.
Brenden Dillon scored the only goal for Winnipeg, which fell to the last-place Sharks and saw its record fall to 16-9-2 on the season. The loss dropped Winnipeg out of first in the Central, with Colorado pulling ahead.
Dealt a serious blow in their first game in Anaheim - by way of a knee injury to forward Kyle Connor - the Jets began life without their top player on Tuesday.
And things really did not go much better in San Jose.
"We really shouldn’t be putting up any excuses here," forward Cole Perfetti said postgame.
"We’ve got to be better, we’ve got to score. The work ethic is there, I think. The right idea, it’s just executing it. I think we can be better. KC is out for a bit now. We can’t use that excuse, we just need to put our heads down and work. Hopefully we can turn this thing around.”
As if fired out of a cannon, the Sharks came out guns blazing. Outshooting the Jets 11-1 through the first five minutes, San Jose finally opened the scoring on the team's 13th shot on net.
It was Justin Bailey from the point, whose long-rage wrister rattled off the post and past Brossoit, giving the Sharks a 1-0 lead at the midway mark.
The goal was Bailey's first in a span of nearly six years, with his marker coming on March 10, 2018.
“Yeah they came out hot and had a good push," Perfetti said of the Sharks' start. "We matched that I think. They came out in the first 10 hard, and we pushed back in the second half of that first period. I think LB saved our bacon a little bit early. He played fantastic. Kudos to him for keeping us in it early. Then the rest of the game, we’ve just got to be a little bit better.”
Despite failing to pick up a goal on either of its opening period power plays, Winnipeg did get on the board late in the frame.
It was fellow defender Brenden Dillon - who spent six seasons playing for the Sharks - that gave the Jets their first goal of the night. With Vlad Namestnikov providing a perfect screen, Dillon's wrist shot found its way through Blackwood, knotting the game at ones with his fifth of the season.
Somehow Winnipeg battled back to tie the shots at 15 early in the second period. Both teams put up a strong effort in the middle stanza, with the closest opportunity landing on the stick of Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey. He hammered a power play one-timer square off the post.
Winnipeg finished atop the shot chart through 40 minutes, holding a 28-25 advantage heading into the third.
“Give them credit, they came out hard," head coach Rick Bowness said. "We survived. We bent a little bit, but we survived and then we took over the second half of that period. So, you give them credit for the first half, we took over the second half."
Brossoit made a gigantic stop in tight against Mikael Granlund with just seven minutes remaining, but it was all for naught, as Dylan DeMelo took a two-minute hooking minor just half a minute later.
And with 4:51 remaining, William Eklund put the home team back on top with a power play one-timer that beat Brossoit across the crease.
The Jets did get another chance, however, as Mike Hoffman hooked Mark Scheifele with 3:32 remaining. Having gone 0/4 on the power play to that point, Winnipeg's man advantage faltered once again.
Brossoit hit the bench for the extra attacker, while Bowness called a timeout with 1:15 remaining.
But as was the story for the entirety of the game, the Jets were unable to bulge the twine with an extra man on the ice and fell to the cellar-dwelling Sharks.
"The effort is there, but now the puck just has to go in the net," Perfetti added. "LB played great. It's not on him, it’s not on our team defence. We’ve just got to get the puck in the net.”
Brossoit finished the night with 30 stops on the 32 shots fired his way by the Sharks. Blackwood turned aside 36 of the 36 pucks that Winnipeg put on net, helping San Jose improve to 9-17-3 on the year.
Next up for Winnipeg is a Wednesday night test against the Kinds at Crypto.com Arena. Much like Tuesday's game, the Western Conference tilt will be aired on TSN at 9:30 PM central time.