LAS VEGAS – A cursory glance at the traditional scoresheet would suggest the Winnipeg Jets didn’t get a strong enough performance from the backup goalie.
But while David Rittich himself wasn’t thrilled with how things played out in the first period of his regular season debut with the Jets and took full ownership of a puckhandling blunder that ended up in the back of the net, his teammates were quick to absolve him of any blame in what turned out to be a 5-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night.
“We can’t go put Dave in that position, especially on (start) No. 1. I thought he did a tremendous job the last 40 minutes. He kept us in the game a lot of times,” said Jets defenceman Nate Schmidt. “He’s going to want some things back. Guys are going to want plays back. You just can’t have too many guys that want plays back to start a game.
“We had self-inflicted wounds all over the rink. It was just, I think we were pretty happy about ourselves last night and didn’t want to come out and play the same way to start the game. Our guys could have rolled over and made that game a lot worse. So if we’re going to take anything out of it, it’s to understand the consistency that you need to have early. I thought the last two periods were good, but you’re going to dig yourself a hole, it’s hard to come out of.”
Giving up four goals on the first 12 shots he faced wasn’t exactly how Rittich envisioned things going.
One of those shots was the result of a three-on-one rush converted by Jack Eichel, another came after a coverage breakdown where both blue-liners were caught below the goal line and nobody picked up the wide open player in front of the net, a third was a cross-ice pass that caromed off the skate of Jets defenceman Brenden Dillon.
The fourth came at four-on-four, with Jets defenceman Neal Pionk passing the puck back to Rittich, who looked for Mark Scheifele up the middle, only to have the attempt intercepted by Eichel – who scored his second of the night.
“I saw (Scheifele) in the middle and thought I’d pass it through the two guys and we’d have a three-on-two or something like that. It just didn’t work out. He made a good shot and scored,” said Rittich, who was asked if the play by Pionk caught him off-guard. “I wasn’t surprised that much. I like to play the puck. I have to make a better play. Neal was wide open. I just should have passed to him.”
Rittich turned aside the final 19 shots he faced and that was encouraging for him, though his overriding emotion was on the opposite end of the spectrum.
“Frustrating. That’s not how I imagined my first Jets game was going to look like,” said Rittich. “So, I wasn’t happy with the first period about how we played and how I played, obviously. I’m the most hard person on myself. I’m not going to blame myself in front of you. We made some mistakes, some tough bounces, and the game was 4-0.”
Jets associate coach Scott Arniel was quick to praise Rittich for his ability to settle things down after the rocky start to the game.
“The players were the ones who really felt like they let him down,” said Arniel. “It’s his first start as a Jet. They were really hoping to get him a win. Their play in front of him, we never really gave him a chance to get himself settled. He saw an awful lot very quickly.
“He was good, yeah. We took over the game. After the first period was done, we decided we were going to play the way that we can play and do the things we do. We spent a lot of time (in the offensive zone), we had a lot of looks. And David had to make a couple of stops for us. Hopefully, he still feels good about himself because he’s a good goaltender and we’re going to need him.”
Rittich is likely to be called upon in short order as the Jets face another back-to-back scenario next Thursday and Friday after closing out a homestand that features games against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday and the St. Louis Blues on Monday.
Barring something unforeseen, Rittich figures to face the Arizona Coyotes in what will be the first NHL game played at Mullett Arena.
“It’s not great to be without a game for a long time,” said Rittich. “But you know what? I know my position, I know my role, and I’ll take every single game that the coach gives me.”
Furthermore, Schmidt was quick to dismiss a theory that playing a third game in four days in three time zones might have been a tough ask, feeling this can’t simply be dismissed as a schedule loss.
The implication being that the slow start and self-inflicted wounds had far more to do with the outcome than anything related to the taxing nature of the schedule on this three-game road trip that saw the Jets go 1-2.
“I believe our group could have come in here and won this game. I really do,” said Schmidt. “We showed that we could. We just have to start on time. That’s what hurts. That’s what hurts after the game is over. You know you played a good 40 minutes, but unfortunately it’s not a 40-minute game.”
Chalk it up as another important lesson learned for a group that showed a great deal of resiliency in earning a 4-3 overtime win one night earlier.
But instead of stacking victories for the first time in this young season, the Jets return home with a record of 2-2 and could face the prospect of being without winger Nikolaj Ehlers.
“No. Not for today,” said Arniel, asked if Ehlers was under consideration to play on Thursday. “We’ll talk a little bit more about that maybe on Saturday.”
It wasn’t just what Arniel said about Ehlers, but the way he said it that sounded alarm bells.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the dynamic Dane could miss an extended period of time after sitting out the past two games with a lower-body injury, but an update won’t be provided until after the morning skate on Saturday because the Jets are travelling home from Nevada on Friday.
Compounding the loss of Ehlers is that his regular linemates have been held off the scoresheet since he left the lineup.
Although Scheifele scored three times during the first two games, Kyle Connor has been limited to an empty-net goal in the season opener and has 12 shots on goal through four games.
It’s way too early to suggest this is a slump for Connor and his shooting percentage (8.3 per cent) is bound to rise toward his career average (15.2) as the season progresses and the sample size expands.
For a guy who could threaten to score 50 goals, it’s impossible to ignore the fact Connor has come out of the gate a bit slower than expected, while fully recognizing it’s still very early in the process.
The status of Ehlers could play a role in any potential line juggling, since Connor built chemistry with Pierre-Luc Dubois (who scored his first goal of the season on Thursday) over the course of last season as he produced a career-high 47 goals and notched 93 points (also a career high).
Ehlers was placed on injured reserve on Friday, retroactive to Oct. 18, which means he will be out for at least the two games of the homestand.
The Jets recalled forward Dominic Toninato from the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League, but he is likely to be the extra forward, at least for the time being.
Jets defenceman Dylan Samberg also sat out on Thursday with a lower-body injury, though Arniel left the door open for his return on Saturday.
After going without a goal in each of the first two games from the defence corps, the Jets got another marker from Pionk (giving him three goals and four points in the past two games) and it was set up by a crisp cross-ice feed from Josh Morrissey.
“They’ve done a real good job of activating themselves and really adding offence from the back end,” said Schmidt. “We talked about it early in the year. We have to have that. We talked about it between periods, ‘OK, D, have to have one here’ as a way to be a catalyst for our offence.”