I don't know how to describe this game. I thought Scheifele was really good. Both ends of the ice. I thought Lowry's line brought a lot of momentum to the team. I thought the 4th line played well, Stenlund made a good impression.
I thought Dillon and Pionk were pretty bad, in giving up space. Dillon had a lot of pucks get behind him, with poor support. On the 2-1 goal there was no reason for both defensemen to be above the circles in a late period situation.
The penalty Pionk took was frustrating. I thought Samberg made it worse by doing a pirouette at centre ice when he was in good position, but geez no reason in a late game to let Phil Kessel get behind you. The Knights seemed to have a game plan to get the pucks behind the defense all night, and it worked alot. It's unfortunate that the Jets never got their pairings synchronized after a long 3rd period shift by Dillon where the forwards continually failed to get the pucks in deep.
Special teams lose the game in the 3rd. I didn't understand why Schmidt got the back half shift on the first PK of the game, and made a good block on Marchessault too, but then late in the game he gets benched for Pionk, who was in no man's land on that tying goal. Another one where Samberg misplayed the situation to exarcerbate it, but I'm going to say in a key PK Pionk would probably be my 6th choice of d-men, and I'm a Pionk fan.
I think Barron probably overplayed the last PK, which gave up a grade A chance, but with young players they aren't going to make the right play every time in every situation. That's the hard learning curve.
Hellebuyck could have bailed out his team tonight, but he didn't make the big save, unfortunately.
It's disappointing because that's a chance to make a statement against a top team, that was missing their best player, and two best d-men, and the Jets couldn't get it done.
Jets need the final game of the homestand, hope the sting of this one gives the team motivation.