Arguably the most disappointing season in the history of the 2.0 Winnipeg Jets ended with a fitting thud Thursday night.
The Jets looked at times sleepy and disinterested against a young, speedy Sharks squad, getting blown out 6-1 at Canada Life Centre.
If there was any silver lining, the Jets did secure the seventh-best odds of winning next month’s draft lottery.
The Jets opened the scoring, but the Sharks scored six unanswered goals as the Jets finished the season with a fourth straight loss.
“We got the first goal and kinda disrespected our opponent,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “It became a little bit of pond hockey and trying to be cute, trying to make these fancy plays and a young team like that, they played last night, and instead of keeping the hammer down and staying after them we just stopped playing. We didn’t have the intensity. We didn’t have that sorta drive that we should’ve followed up with for the rest of that game.”
Macklin Celebrini had a goal and two assists to set a new Sharks franchise record for points in a season with 115 at the age of just 19.
Cole Koepke scored the Jets only goal in the loss.
The Jets were outshot 26-14 over the final two periods and outscored 24-7 over the last four games of the season.
“We wanted to finish this off the right way,” said Jets defenceman Dylan DeMelo. “Result – whatever it is, but playing the right way, and playing for each other, and putting on a good show in front of our fans, and we didn’t do that. So, it’s very disappointing and kinda just puts a bow on just a disappointing year.”
Winnipeg finished 26th in the overall standings after earning 21 fewer wins than their Presidents’ Trophy winning season. With only 82 points, it was the Jets second worst 82-game season since moving back to Winnipeg. They had only 78 points in the 2015-2016 season.
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“Everybody should be pissed off,” said Arniel. “Not just about tonight, pissed off that we didn’t make the playoffs.”
The Jets also announced their year-end awards. Mark Scheifele took their Three Stars Award for having the most three stars selections. Gabriel Vilardi is the winner of the club’s Community Service Award and Morgan Barron garnered the Dan Snyder Memorial Award for perseverance, dedication, and hard work without reward or recognition.
Winnipeg got the scoring started at the 3:28 mark of the first. The Sharks had the puck in the Winnipeg end but when Pavol Regenda sent a pass back to the point, it got past Mario Ferraro and into the neutral zone.
Koepke got on his horse and raced past Ferraro, giving him a free skate into the Sharks’ zone before he ripped a wrist shot high over the right shoulder of Alex Nedeljkovic for his eighth goal of the season.
San Jose responded on the power play 2:58 later. William Eklund fired a shot on net from the point that Eric Comrie failed to cleanly catch, creating a rebound for Igor Chernyshov in front. Comrie denied the first follow-up attempt before Chernyshov buried his second look.
The Sharks took their first lead of the night with 3:06 left in the period. Chernyshov had the puck just inside the Jets’ blue line before sliding it over to Celebrini. The Sharks’ young superstar didn’t handle the puck cleanly, allowing John Klingberg to get control for a moment.
Klingberg gave it back to Celebrini before he fired a cross-ice pass to Will Smith, whose shot went through both DeMelo and Comrie to make it 2-1 with his 24th of the season.
It was the 19-year-old Celebrini’s second assist on the night to give him 114 points on the season, tying Joe Thornton’s franchise record.
The Sharks were outshot by the Jets 12-7 in the first period but registered the first eight shots on goal of the second, with shot number eight turning into goal number three at the 5:51 mark.
Collin Graf forced a turnover just inside the Sharks’ blue line, poking the puck into the neutral zone before outracing a flat-footed DeMelo to the puck. Graf skated the puck into the Winnipeg end before cutting to the middle and firing a shot past Comrie for his 21st of the season.
The Jets came close to scoring a couple of times in the period with Gabriel Vilardi and Koepke both ringing shots off the post before the Sharks extended their lead.
The Jets got caught with four players deep in the San Jose end as Michael Misa grabbed a loose puck and sped up the ice on a 2-on-1 with Kiefer Sherwood. Misa kept the puck and fired a shot that Comrie stopped, but Misa buried the rebound with 1:59 left in the second.
San Jose made it 5-1 with five seconds left when Eklund tucked home a loose puck after a scramble in front of Comrie.
Celebrini scored to make it 6-1 just 1:14 into the third, beating Comrie from the slot for his 45th goal of the campaign and setting a new franchise mark for points in a season.
Little else happened as the clock wound down until a skirmish in front of the Jets’ net with just over five minutes left led to Josh Morrissey getting in a dust-up with Ty Dellandrea.
The final shots on goal tally for the evening favoured San Jose 33-26.
With the loss, Winnipeg finishes the season with a 35-35-12 record and 82 points. That’s 34 points fewer than last season, the largest single-season drop-off by a reigning President’s Trophy winner (with the exception of seasons shortened by lockouts or COVID).
The Jets will enter the May 5th draft lottery with a 6.5 per cent chance on landing the top pick, 6.7 per cent odds of picking second overall, 44.4 per cent odds of picking seventh, 36.5 per cent odds of picking eighth and a 5.6 per cent chance of picking ninth, which is the lowest they could pick.
The last time Winnipeg had a pick inside the top ten was when they selected Patrik Laine second overall in 2016.
Players will hold their year-end media availabilities over the coming days before a very important offseason begins to ensure this season was just a blip and not an indication that the Jets’ championship window has closed.
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