WINNIPEG — The hits keep on coming and the mountain left for the Winnipeg Jets to climb just got a whole lot steeper.
Just like that, the margin for error has gone from slim to none.
With one more misstep or bad break, this season — and the Stanley Cup Playoffs — will be over for the Jets.
A suspected shoulder issue for Jets centre Mark Scheifele is the latest in a long list of injuries that have been piling up either late in the regular season or during this hard-hitting series against the Veags Golden Knights.
It wasn’t even a thundering check that knocked Scheifele out of Monday’s Game 4, rather it happened on a breakaway chance on his first shift.
Blake Wheeler sent Scheifele in alone and as he made a move to his backhand, Scheifele lost his balance, tripping over the right leg or stick of Golden Knights goalie Laurent Brossoit and crashing awkwardly into the end boards.
Scheifele was in some discomfort as he made his way to the bench, but came out for a power play and had an opportunity to take a shot, but he didn’t get much on it.
As he left the ice at 5:11 of the first period, Scheifele raced down the tunnel for further evaluation and he was ruled out of the game before the first intermission had come to an end.
When he spoke at the podium after a 4-2 loss to the Golden Knights, Jets head coach Rick Bowness didn’t rule Scheifele out of the series, noting he would be re-evaluated on Tuesday.
Whatever that means won’t fully be known until the Jets hit the ice for practice in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
Even then, the drama over his availability could extend to the pre-game warmup on Thursday night.
The Jets are already without top defenceman Josh Morrissey for at least the remainder of the series with a suspected right knee injury, while forward Nikolaj Ehlers is still waiting for medical clearance after suffering an upper-body injury in Game 81 of the regular season.
Compounding matters, the Jets haven’t had the services of rookie forward Cole Perfetti since Feb. 19 and he won’t be back before the end of this series either, so to say their depth has been tested would qualify as a massive understatement.
All to say, the Jets will continue to be without several key players as they try to avoid elimination after going down 3-1 in this best-of-seven series against the top-seeded team in the Western Conference.
“It’s unfortunate obviously to lose Mark, a guy we really rely on. The guys battled extremely hard,” said Wheeler, who had a goal and an assist. “Bad luck, whatever you want to call it. It’s not something we can really dwell on. We have to focus on the bodies we have available and certainly we have enough to win on Thursday. We’d really like to have the guys that aren’t good to go but like I said we believe in the group we’ve got and we’ll go out there on Thursday and fight like hell.
“I just think it’s a matter of willing ourselves to get the job done. That’s really all there is to it. Just go there with the mindset we’re not going to be denied, I think that’s the approach we have to have.”
Wheeler also dropped this nugget, suggesting one victory could help plant the seed of doubt.
“These series can be interesting the longer you keep them alive,” said Wheeler. “Just like I said, give it everything we’ve got Thursday and come out of there with a big victory.”
Oddly enough, the Jets played some of their best hockey when playing without key cogs during the first half of the regular season, so that’s something they’ll look to lean on — while understanding that the playoffs are a different animal and the Golden Knights would have been difficult to knock off with a full lineup.
“Yeah, it feels like this year we’ve been without key players at a lot of moments,” said Jets centre Pierre-Luc Dubois, who scored a goal and drew a couple of penalties but also took a penalty that expired just before the Golden Knights got the go-ahead goal from William Karlsson at 13:32 of the second period. “So, obviously it’s not something you want to see; (Scheifele is) a great player. He’s huge for our team, but you’ve got to have the next-man-up mentality. We stayed in it, gave ourselves a good opportunity and, unfortunately, we just didn’t win.”
Bowness was asked about the tough road ahead and he wasn’t interested in hearing how rare it is for teams to win three consecutive games after falling behind 3-1 in a series.
“The odds and all that stuff, and the history, it means nothing to us. It means nothing, the odds of coming back,” said Bowness. “The only thing that matters is finding a way to win Thursday. You can throw all the history of the league at me, the odds of coming back, that means nothing. The only thing that matters is going in there and winning a hockey game. That’s what matters.”
When it comes to the first four games of this series, the depth of the Golden Knights roster has been shining through, as they’ve been getting contributions throughout the lineup to the point where it makes for an interesting debate when trying to actually figure out which is the top line, which is the second and which is the third.
The correct answer is that when all four lines are contributing offensively the way that they are — and in other areas — it doesn’t matter one bit.
Meanwhile, the Golden Knights stars are also outperforming the Jets’ top guns who are healthy enough to remain in the lineup.
As for the goaltending matchup between former crease mates, the decisive edge the Jets were believed to have going into the series hasn’t translated into anything tangible.
Connor Hellebuyck was steady but not overworked, making 17 saves as the Jets won Game 1.
Since that time, he’s been the busier goalie and while he’s not the reason the Jets are on the verge of elimination, he has yet to steal a game in the series.
For a Jets team that is missing so much firepower, that’s a problem.
Meanwhile, despite hearing a few chants and taunts of “You’re a backup,” Brossoit has been providing steady goaltending, just as he did down the stretch for a team that ended up earning the No. 1 seed in the West.
Brossoit has essentially neutralized any perceived advantage in what has been his first chance to be a starter in the playoffs.
“Oh yeah, I could hear them,” Brossoit told reporters after making 24 saves. “Honestly, it’s just fuel. When you have that many people chanting your name, whether it’s positive or negative, it’s fuel.”
So how do the Jets recover and try to move on after losing another key player?
Well, let’s give the last word on that subject to Wheeler, who explained the task at hand as succinctly as possible before his scrum came to a close.
“I mean obviously our backs are against the wall. I don’t really have the words for that,” said Wheeler. “Between now and Thursday, we gotta come up with the proper approach to win that game. We can’t win three in one day.”
But unless they win one, the Stanley Cup dream will be over and a long and complicated off-season is going to arrive quicker than some people anticipated.
