Rick Bowness: "We Certainly Need More From Certain Players"

The Winnipeg Jets are one of the coldest teams in the National Hockey League.

In fact, Winnipeg is on the worst streak of all clubs, league-wide. 

0-5-1 in their last six games, the Jets haven't won a game the middle portion of a five-game road trip. That game? A dominant performance over the New York Rangers. 

At the time, it appeared Winnipeg may never lose again. Having added three players in advance of the trade deadline, the Jets had stocked up and winning appeared to be second nature.

Fast forward two weeks, and the team is in shambles. 

The seemingly ever-present goal scoring has completely vanished. The competitive goaltender rotation between Connor Hellebuyck and Laurent Brossoit is no longer in the fold. 

“We certainly need more from certain players, we do," head coach Rick Bowness said following Saturday's loss to Ottawa. "Every team does. When you’re going through a (slide) like this, you just need more from everybody and we’re going to get that. We’re going to have to (have) a little bit more desperation from the start of the game and on. Again, we’re just finding ways (to lose). You take a late penalty, those things hurt you. We’re finding ways to lose games. We’ll get going again. We’ll find ways to win games. We’ll get going again.”

The team that was once looked upon by opponents as the No. 1 club defensively has faltered, and done so in an incredible manner. 

Brian Burke's old "18-wheeler off a cliff" analogy very well may be back in the fold if the Jets cannot figure it out.

This isn't anything new for the club either. 

Looking back upon last season, the Jets were sitting first in the Western Conference. They then lost five of their next seven, before another stretch that saw just two wins in 11 games. 

Winnipeg was basically .500 through late March and early April, before ultimately bowing out to the eventual Stanley Cup winning Vegas Golden Knights in five games. 

Sure, the unfortunately-timed injuries to Nikolaj Ehlers, Mark Scheifele and Josh Morrissey didn't help the cause, but the second half falloff is certainly something to be studied. 

The Jets, which went 7-8-1 in an exceptionally busy month of March, are in need of an extremely quick rebound as the calendar flips from March to April. 

"We're just finding ways to beat ourselves," Bowness added. "...again, just guys trying to do too much or making a bad read. It's one or the other. It's another game where we had a wide open net to tie it up. That's back to back games. That was sitting there, we just missed it. It's disappointing we had to battle back."

With eight games remaining, Winnipeg will look to sort things out, and do so in short order. Of the final eight opponents, five are currently sitting in postseason contention. 

The first test will be on Monday night against Pierre-Luc Dubois and the Los Angeles Kings. The Jets will close out their five-game homestand with a Thursday night affair with the Calgary Flames. Both games can be viewed live on TSN.