The Winnipeg Jets get blown out in 5-0 loss to the Florida Panthers Saturday night
The Winnipeg Jets were handed their second straight loss Saturday after losing 5-0 to the Florida Panthers. The defending Stanley Cup Champions saw big performances from top line forwards Sam Reinhart and captain Aleksander Barkov, who both recorded three points and were involved in all but one of Florida's five goals.
The first 15 minutes of the game were evenly-matched with both sides trading scoring chances but ultimately amounting to no goals. It wasn't until Josh Morrissey attempted to regroup back into his own end and was swiftly knocked off his feet before the Panthers had their biggest chance yet.
Florida had an odd man rush entering the zone where Gustav Forsling takes a quick shot on net that Dylan DeMelo does his best to block but it's redirected off his stick and into a streaking Mackie Samoskevich, who has the puck bounce off him and into the net for the first goal of the game.
Things went from bad to worse when just two minutes into the second period, Sam Bennett enters the Jets zone with momentum and works a shot off Hellebuyck's pad out to a low-hanging Nate Schmidt entering the zone.
The former Jet drops down from the blue line for a quick shot and beat Hellebuyck for the Panthers second goal and extending the lead to 2-0 early into the period. The Jets had a quick chance to respond with Kyle Connor get a quick chance by himself but had his high shot saved and deflected out by Bobrovsky.
It started to mount on the Jets when a turnover in their end lead to a blueline shot on Hellebuyck with a pair of Panthers in front of him. He makes the initial save but after a shot from Barkov bounces perfectly to Evan Rodrigues low near the post, Mark Scheifele doesn't react in time to lift his stick and Rodrigues buries the shot on an open net.
Winnipeg were on their heels as they try to get back on a odd man rush, where multiple Jets backcheck to cover Reinhart. He takes a quick shot that hits the post and bounces out to Barkov, who no one is covering and allows him to take a quick shot on an empty net to extend the lead to 4-0 for the Panthers.
The second was a brutal period for the Jets as their defensive structure collapsed several times with Josh Morrissey, Mark Scheifele and others failing to execute basic coverages and resulted in fairly easy goals for the Panthers. They were outscored three to nothing and allowed 14 shots to Winnipeg's 12 on Bobrovsky.
The onslaught wasn't finished in the third period as the Cats worked the puck around on a rare four-on-four man advantage. Barkov continued his stellar night with a quick pass that redirects off the skate of a striding Dmitry Kulikov into a wide open net for their fifth goal of the game.
Florida's Aaron Ekblad played a physical game versus the Jets and Scheifele had enough as he wanted to generate some momentum for his team and the two decided to drop the gloves. Scheifele was certainly frustrated as he finished the night minus three with seven penalty minutes.
It was an impressive performance from netminder Sergei Bobrovsky, who saved all 27 shots for his 45th career shutout. The performance was possibly the best of his career versus the Jets as he entered Saturday with a 5-10-2 record and a 3.57 goals against average in his prior 19 career games against Winnipeg.
Saturday's game was the first leg of a home-and-home as the Jets will host the Cats in Winnipeg on Tuesday, where they can hopefully respond with a win after examining what went wrong in the loss.