Rick Bowness: “I’m Surprised There Weren’t More Boos”

The chorus of boos at Canada Life Centre on Saturday evening were the loudest in recent memory. Quite frankly, they were the most prolific jeers in retrospective memory, as well.

Sometimes, the unpleasantries can be uncalled for, but Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to the visiting Philadelphia Flyers was certainly not one of those times.

“I’m surprised there weren’t more boos,” Winnipeg Jets head coach Rick Bowness said matter-of-factly in his post-game media availability.

“We need a 60 minute effort,” Bowness continued. “That’s all the fans want to see, is a 60 minute effort. The wins and losses will take care of themselves if you take care of the effort and take care of the process. That will take care of itself. Right now the process isn’t good enough and the effort isn’t good enough. And that’s all our fans want to see. So they’re justified in their boos.”

For a team just one-and-a-half weeks removed from sole possession of first place in the Central Division, the Jets have been on quite the nosedive in the seven games since pulling ahead of the Dallas Stars.

On Sunday, January 15, the Jets sat alone atop the Central and had won eight of nine games leading up to that point. Sure, that kind of productivity cannot be sustained – unless you are the Boston Bruins, of course – but dropping five of seven games following that victory over Arizona on the 15th? That was definitely not on the bingo card of any Jets player, staff member, fan, or even local reporter.

It’s been a tough couple weeks in Manitoba.

“The difference makers, you can’t even find them out there,” Bowness said candidly. “Until we make that commitment again to play as a team and we want to win, this is what you get.”

Despite a road-heavy schedule, to which the team played eight of nine on the road in just 15 days, the Jets have sputtered, losing three of five on their most recent road trip, before returning home to drop two straight in their not-so-friendly home confines.

Back-to-back 4-1 losses to Montreal and Toronto got the road trip off to a poor start before the team seemingly found itself and bounced back with two five-goal outings on back-to-back days, beating the Ottawa Senators 5-1 and the Philadelphia Flyers 5-3, before ultimately dropping the final game of the heater to Nashville by a narrow 2-1 score.

With the longest road trip of the season behind them, the thought was that the three-game homestand would be a nice dose of home cooking before the players head into the All-Star break and the team’s bye week (a span of 11 days between games).

That wasn’t the case.

Winnipeg was outplayed badly by the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday in a game that saw the Jets put up just 21 total shots on goal, and 11 through 40 minutes of play. Although the 3-2 score indicated differently, the game was not close. Winnipeg managed two goals late in the game with its goaltender on the bench, but save for those final four minutes, it was all-Buffalo.

A second shot at a nice home victory awaited the team on Saturday, but once again, it was the visitors who came out firing. Philly took a 2-0 lead into the third period, before scoring back-to-back strikes in the early stages of the final frame, sealing the deal on what was Carter Hart‘s very first shutout of the year.

The Jets walked down the tunnel twice on Saturday night to a chorus of heavy boos. Flyers fans in attendance certainly soaked up the moment.

“It feels like the sky is falling a bit,” forward Adam Lowry said. “But we’re still in a good spot, we can win this game against St. Louis on Monday, and going into the break, use those rest days and come back really refreshed. Obviously we’re disappointed with the effort, disappointed with the outcome, three games in a row that we’ve kind of let slip away. You’re going to want to stop this slide as soon as we can.”

Yes, the show does go on. Jets fans will just have to wait and see what the chef cooks up for dinner on Monday night. After a healthy plate of turnovers on Thursday, it was goose eggs on Saturday.

Monday’s contest will also be a divisional game, as it is the Blues that will roll into Canada Life Centre in hopes of avenging their previous two losses to Winnipeg from earlier this season.

“Ultimately, we’ve just got to find a way to get out of this thing. We’ve got one game here that we’ve got to push everything towards here,” defenceman Brenden Dillon said. “We’ve had enough meetings amongst us as players and coaches, that we’ve just to go out there and do it, really.”

The Jets are now 31-19-1 on the season and sit three points back of the 28-13-10 Dallas Stars. St. Louis is still 14 points behind Winnipeg, but it is the Minnesota Wild (58 points), the Colorado Avalanche (57 points) and Nashville Predators (54 points) that pose the largest threat, as each of those three teams have only played 48 games to Dallas and Winnipeg’s 51.

“I think that now that we’ve gone through this rough patch, this is where we really need to find ourselves and step our game up that much more,” Dillon added. “Find a way, a greasy way, whether that’s a 1-0 game or special teams finding a way, whether that’s power play or PK. We’ve just got to get a win here under our belt. Starts here on Monday.” 

Operating as the No. 1 Western Conference team in terms of home ice success this season (17-8-0), the Jets will need to rediscover that winning touch as they host the Blues at 7:00 PM central time from Canada Life Centre on Monday. The game can be viewed on TSN in Canada and Bally Sports in the USA.