There will be no Whiteout Street Party in Winnipeg this weekend. With hockey fans hoping to cheer on their beloved Jets one more time, the boys in blue and white failed to deliver from T-Mobile Arena on Thursday.
Travelling to Nevada for Game 5, the Winnipeg Jets faced elimination for the first time in their opening round, best-of-seven series with the No. 1 seed Vegas Golden Knights.
And they were unable to get the job done.
As a matter of fact, the Jets really couldn't even get it started until it no longer mattered.
Failing to even muster up as much as a goal until garbage time, Winnipeg fell 4-1 to Vegas, as the Golden Knights became the first team to punch its ticket to the second round, while the Jets became the first club eliminated from the postseason.
Chandler Stephenson scored twice, while Mark Stone had a goal and two assists for the second round bound Golden Knights.
Much like that of Winnipeg's overall 2022-23 season trajectory, the series started quite well for the Jets, before injuries took over and team took a heavy nosedive as things wore on.
With a number of injuries to both sides, the Jets and Knights laced very different lineups for Game 5.
The biggest news on either side was the return of forward Nikolaj Ehlers to the Jets' lineup. Losing Josh Morrissey and Mark Scheifele in back-to-back games, Winnipeg was still without a number of critical playmakers.
For Vegas, it was Phil Kessel, Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb who were all held out due to injury and illness.
In what has slowly become a peculiar pattern, Connor Hellebuyck allowed a goal on the game's opening shot, handing Vegas a quick 1-0 lead.
Scoring just 50 seconds into the period was none other than Stephenson. The ever-present Knights forward put home an easy tap-in on a great setup pass from linemate Stone.
Vegas limited Winnipeg to just two total shots through 15 minutes, before the Jets put on some pressure in the late stages of the opening frame. The Golden Knights took a 1-0 lead into the middle stanza, while holding a slight 7-5 shot advantage.
But things quickly fell apart for Winnipeg in that second period.
Three defensive breakdowns in the first 10 minutes saw Vegas pull ahead to a lopsided 4-0 lead.
Much like that of the first, the Golden Knights found another goal on their first shot of the second period. Stone did all the work himself, as he chipped the puck up the in air, caught it and threw it down to his stick before ripping it past Hellebuyck high, glove side just 42 seconds after the opening face-off.
Then, moments after Keegan Kolesar rattled a shot off the post, Vegas added another. This time it was William Karlsson, who jammed a loose puck past Hellebuyck, just 4:41 in.
Roughly 30 seconds after being denied on the doorstep by a Laurent Brossoit diving glove save, Adam Lowry found himself in the penalty box for hooking.
It took Stephenson all of nine seconds to score his second of the game. Jack Eichel found Stone below the goal line, who quickly fed Stephenson at the net front. He one-timed it into the cage, giving Vegas its commanding 4-0 lead 8:37 into the frame.
The Jets trailed 4-0 on the scoreboard and 21-14 on the shot chart through 40 minutes of play.
With an empty net and six attackers on the ice since the 12-minute mark, Winnipeg did manage to finally beat Brossoit. Kyle Connor put a chip shot over the shoulder of his former teammate, cutting Vegas' lead to three with just over five minutes remaining.
But that was as close as the Jets would come.
Pierre-Luc Dubois thought he had brought the Jets to within two, but his goal at 17:25 was successfully challenged for a Blake Wheeler hand-pass, keeping the home team ahead by three.
The Golden Knights shut it down for the final two minutes, sealing the deal on the 4-1 win.
Brossoit turned aside 29 of the 30 pucks he faced, while Hellebuyck made 21 stops on 25 Golden Knights shots.
Winnipeg will now return home for a big day on Saturday. As opposed to the third Whiteout Street Party of the spring, it will be locker clean-out day, as the Jets host their year-end media availability.
A number of sizeable management decisions will certainly need to be made this offseason, as player personnel will definitely undergo some serious changes come 2023-24.