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Published Dec 01, 2025 • 4 minute read
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Buffalo Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram (4) and Winnipeg Jets right wing Gustav Nyquist (14) collide during the second period of an NHL hockey game Monday. Photo by Jeffrey T. BarnesArticle content
A win over the Western Conference’s worst team didn’t generate even an ounce of momentum for the Winnipeg Jets two nights later.
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Facing the perennially-bad Sabres in Buffalo, the Jets kicked off December with a lacklustre 5-1 loss on Monday, their fifth loss in the last six games.
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Some of the words tossed around after this one: embarrassed, disconnected, stubborn. All fit to a tee.
Coming off a 5-2 win in Nashville, the Jets did nothing to suggest they’re rediscovering their game, regressing instead.
The result: a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in a decade and a half and sat in last place in the Eastern Conference walked all over the one that won the Presidents’ Trophy last year.
Make that make sense.
They tried to in a players-only meeting after the game, but Kyle Connor was reluctant to shed too much light on what was said.
“Everybody’s got to be a lot better. Keep it at that,” he told reporters in Buffalo when the players eventually emerged.
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Head coach Scott Arniel says the team meeting was called not by him, but by captain Adam Lowry.
“You’re hoping that the response into our next game is a lot better than what it was tonight,” Arniel said. “We recognize that we just embarrassed ourselves and we’re going to have to be a heck of a lot better in the next one.”
Through 25 games last year, the Jets were 18-7. It took until early January for them to suffer their 12th loss.
At 13-12, this team needs a telescope to see top spot in the NHL.
The Jets came out of the gate on Monday and fell flat on their mugs, giving up far too much easy ice and allowing two Sabres goals 15 seconds apart in the first four minutes and change.
“We were chasing that game right from the get-go,” Arniel said. “I didn’t have the warm-and-fuzzies about anything.”
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The first goal came with Dylan DeMelo in the penalty box, Jason Zucker banging in a loose puck that had trickled through goalie Eric Comrie.
The second saw Logan Stanley get caught and Mark Scheifele get out-skated by Bowen Byram, who wired one past Comrie on the ensuing odd-man rush.
The Jets got their own power play midway through the first but managed just one harmless shot on goal.
“If one or two guys are doing the right job, it’s not going to be good enough,” Connor said. “We need everybody playing as five, as a unit. And we just feel a bit disconnected.”
The Sabres kept coming and the Jets made it easy on them, their third goal a masterclass in how not to defend.
Josh Norris, back from injury, was all too happy to take advantage of the free pass to the net, taking the puck there and banking it in off defenceman Dylan Samberg, who was down on a knee in the crease.
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That’s as good a way as any to describe how the Jets played that first period: by taking a knee. Out-shot 15-7, they were lucky they didn’t give up four or five.
“Winnipeg’s defence is caving in,” is how former NHL’er Chris Pronger put it on the Amazon Prime broadcast. “It is a shooting gallery here on Eric Comrie.”
That’s why Arniel decided on the mercy-pull for Comrie, inserting Thomas Milic for the start of the second period and getting Comrie some rest for the next game in Montreal on Wednesday.
If Arniel tore some paint off the walls after that opening 20 minutes, it was hard to tell, as the Jets weren’t much better in the second.
They finally got on the board midway through it, but whatever momentum generated by Connor’s deflection was squashed by the Sabres 94 seconds later.
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That’s when Buffalo’s Alex Tuch grabbed a loose puck near the corner and threw it at the net, off Milic and in, after Winnipeg was burned on a giveaway and a bad line change by their defence.
“Those are mental mistakes,” Arniel said. “You get into a game like that and you make it 3-1, you’ve got to continue to play forward, you can’t make risky plays. We fed right into their offence.”
Shots were 21-14, Buffalo, through two, as the Sabres took the 4-1 lead into the third.
Not even a minute into the final 20, the Jets‘ top defence pair of Josh Morrissey and DeMelo watched Norris get behind them for a clear breakaway and he made them pay with the Sabres’ fifth goal.
The Sabres’ speed and big-play breakouts were all things the Jets studied going into this one.
Then they failed the test.
“Whether that’s stubborn or whether that’s not being quick enough, not reading the situation fast enough,” Arniel said. “We kicked ourselves in that one.”
Mercifully, that’s how it ended.
Final shots were 31-24, as the Sabres were better in every way, even on special teams, where their power play went 1-for-3, Winnipeg’s scoreless in two.
The Jets, 4-9 over their last 13, will limp into Montreal to close out their road trip on Wednesday.
paul.friesen@kleinmedia.ca
X: @friesensunmedia
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