Why the Jets’ ‘best of three’ series vs. Blues is 3 years in the making

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ST. LOUIS — The Winnipeg Jets got outscored 12-3 in two games. They were dominated in Game 3, then started well enough in Game 4 to create a little bit of hope before their late-game implosion. Their Vezina-caliber goaltender got shelled — again — and despite some bad luck, Connor Hellebuyck contributed directly to one of St. Louis’ goals. Again.

But the Winnipeg Jets did not lose their series in St. Louis.

There is also truth behind Blues coach Jim Montgomery’s series of verbal daggers after Game 4.

“I thought we started to get to our O-zone time,” Montgomery said. “And I think we’re owning the net front. And our goaltender’s making saves.”

Long pauses between each statement added impact to all three of those thoughts, especially the last one. Whether intended this way or not, Montgomery’s goaltending comment sounded double-edged and sharp: His goaltender is making key saves and Winnipeg’s goaltender is not. Jordan Binnington stopped 47 of 50 shots in St. Louis; Hellebuyck was pulled in back-to-back games.

And still, the Jets did not lose the series in St. Louis.

No, they haven’t won a single playoff game after losing one since 2019 against these same Blues. They lost four straight to Colorado after winning Game 1 in 2024, four straight to Vegas after winning Game 1 in 2023, and four straight to Montreal after sweeping Edmonton in 2021. The 2020 qualification round complicates things if you count it, but there is no way around acknowledging that history is against Winnipeg’s odds of a comeback.

But they don’t need a comeback. The series is tied 2-2.

So let’s talk about what the rest of this series means for the Jets. Winnipeg is about to begin a best-of-three series, with home-ice advantage, after the best season in franchise history. That “best season in franchise history” comes on the heels of a substantial step forward against Colorado — not in results but in terms of pushback — after an embarrassing effort in an elimination game against Vegas. All of it is taking place on a team in a state of cultural transformation from the Blake Wheeler captaincy, through Rick Bowness’ hiring and his changes to Winnipeg’s leadership group, and towards a defence-first group wherein everybody on the team plays for each other even when the chips are down.

The Jets spent the regular season building off past failures, only to stumble in games 3 and 4. (Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)

This series is meant to be the payoff of all that hard work — of Winnipeg’s courage to hire Bowness, Bowness’ courage to remove a franchise cornerstone’s captaincy and the step-by-step emergence of this generation of Jets players. Adam Lowry’s captaincy is meant to be one in which all players’ voices are heard. Mark Scheifele and Josh Morrissey are meant to be inclusive, team-first players who have the emotional resilience to take heat when the team struggles and show up on the scoresheet the next day. Extend the leadership group beyond the men who wear letters, and Kyle Connor, Neal Pionk, Dylan DeMelo, Nino Niederreiter and so many more of Winnipeg’s veterans have developed Presidents’ Trophy-winning habits over the course of three seasons after 2022’s playoffs miss.

Round 1 of this year’s playoffs is meant to be proof that Winnipeg made it from 2022’s implosion under Dave Lowry — including loud, public-facing questions about their willingness to show up for each other — to the franchise-record-setting performance and successful team culture we saw for 82 games this season. Forget about the St. Louis Blues as the league’s hottest team down the stretch. This series after the heartache that came before it is about Winnipeg’s arrival as a legitimate Cup-contending team.

What happens if Winnipeg fails? How do the Jets go from running it back — brilliantly, it seemed — in the face of doubt to a season like this one … and then run it back again next year? The core players won’t change, outside of a potential Nikolaj Ehlers departure. Scheifele and Hellebuyck are finishing the first year of matching seven-year extensions. The Jets have extended Niederreiter, Pionk, DeMelo, Vladislav Namestnikov and Alex Iafallo, while Lowry and Connor are also under contract next season. Winnipeg’s veterans showed a tremendous amount of guts, digging in to find their “5 to 10 percent better” and set a new standard for the Jets franchise. Their regular-season success vindicates continuity and makes that many veteran contract extensions make sense.

It also demands a breakthrough.

Imagine looking in the mirror after losing a series like this one — after losing a series like Colorado, after losing a series like Vegas — and conjuring the offseason belief all over again. What would give a player, coach or manager realistic self-confidence in bringing back the same group, with the same shared hardships, in the name of a different result? To go up 2-0 against St. Louis just to lose again, pushed out of the series by a team that found another level, would challenge any athlete’s self-confidence. Players are people, too; if Jets fans feel a sense of “here we go again,” the thought has likely entered the team’s minds, as well.

The difference is that fans can only wait, watch and hope. Winnipeg’s players have the opportunity to deliver on the promises they made to each other when the season began. This series is a dead heat at five-on-five. The power play could get Gabriel Vilardi back as soon as Game 5. The penalty kill had been awful prior to Game 4 but pulled off a 3-for-3 result Sunday. Despite the Jets’ lack of momentum right now, every day that goes by when a team has yet to be eliminated is a day it can still prepare itself to win.

Who’s going to ask the Jets to dig in? Whose belief is going to inspire their teammates? Winnipeg can’t win or lose the series on Wednesday, but it needs to give itself a reason to believe, lest the post-Wheeler era of Jets 2.0 hockey maintain its pre-existing association with playoff misery.

The answer to these kinds of questions has usually been Hellebuyck, but Hellebuyck has given up a goal for free in each of Winnipeg’s two losses. Sometimes it looks like he’s trying to win the game when a save in the moment would do. The Jets need to show up for him, to buy him time to regain whatever confidence has been chipped away by back-to-back drubbings. I thought Scott Arniel did a good job of that after Game 4, asserting “100 percent” confidence in Hellebuyck heading into Game 5. Arniel also said that Winnipeg’s best players need to be better than St. Louis’ best players — and it’s clear that Hellebuyck is a part of that group.

So the Jets need more saves from their No. 1 goaltender. They also need to do a much better job protecting the net front to help him make those saves. They need more secondary scoring: 18 of 20 Jets skaters have two points or fewer through four games. They need Scheifele and Connor, their primary scorers, to maintain their defensive assignments while working for their next goal. They need Morrissey to make the difference he so often does and for players such as Niederreiter, Namestnikov, Lowry and Mason Appleton — veteran middle-six forwards — to put the puck in the net.

What Winnipeg doesn’t need in Game 5 is a miracle.

The Jets have controlled play as often as the Blues have through four games. They’ve gotten as many scoring chances from dangerous areas and made defensive adjustments in Game 4 that took away some of the Blues’ advantage switching sides in the offensive zone. This isn’t a case of the 2024 Colorado Avalanche steamrolling through the Jets, leaving zero doubt as to Winnipeg’s ability to stay in a game.

It is a case of two good hockey teams fighting to be great, with each one needing two more wins before reaping any reward at all. For the Jets, it’s the opportunity to prove they were right all along and the answers are in the room after all of these years. You can’t spend the whole season arguing that a team will be judged by its playoff performance and then throw that out because the opponent was really good.

But what happens if the Jets succeed?

“It’s a best two out of three series,” Scheifele said. “We know we have home ice. We have two days to regroup and then back in front of our fans. It’s not what we wanted, but it’s a best two out of three series now.”

What would these Jets be capable of if they dug in and made Game 5 their own in front of their home fans? Isn’t there still some juice to squeeze out of a season spent exceeding expectations on so many levels until this week in St. Louis?

Those answers are for them to write.

(Top photo of Adam Lowry and Jordan Binnington: Jeff Curry / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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