WINNIPEG - After an emotionally charged effort beating the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday night, 48 hours later the Winnipeg Jets managed only 18 shots in a lackluster 4-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes last night at Canada Life Centre.
Carolina struck first 30 seconds into the game when Jaccob Slavin scored his first goal of the year beating Connor Hellebuyck. 42 seconds later Sebastian Aho made the score 2-0. Nikolaj Ehlers and Pierre-Luc Dubois answered back to tie things up in the 2nd period, but that was short lived as Martin Necas’ powerplay goal with 20 seconds left sent the teams to the intermission with Carolina leading 3-2 after two periods.
In the 3rd, Carolina’s Vincent Trocheck scored at 3:04, and despite the Jets having a five minute powerplay after Ian Cole’s vicious knee on knee hit to Mark Scheifele (Cole also received a game misconduct), the Jets couldn’t beat Frederik Andersen, who ended up making 16 saves on what was almost like a night off. The Hurricanes outshot the Jets 34-18.
The Jets were without Neil Pionk who is serving a two-game suspension after delivering a knee-on-knee hit to Leafs defenseman Rasmus Sandin on Sunday night. Pionk is also in concussion protocol after taking a knee to the head later in the same game from the Leafs Jason Spezza, who received a six game suspension.
Winnipeg hits the road for games against Seattle and Vancouver. Thursday’s tilt against the Kraken starts at 9pm (TSN 3, 680 CJOB/Power 97).
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