3 takeaways from Knights’ Game 1 loss: Jets roll behind top line

The T-Mobile Arena stands that were once full of raucous, full-throated, towel-waving fans were almost empty by the time the final buzzer sounded.

An announced crowd of 18,006 arrived Tuesday at T-Mobile Arena ready to celebrate the Golden Knights’ first home playoff game in two years. They were thunderously loud after a new pregame show featuring an on-ice projection of a fire-breathing dragon burning an aircraft to ash.

The Winnipeg Jets made sure they were silent by the end.

The Jets — who coach Rick Bowness said Monday were “not here to give these guys a little workout and move on to the next round” — weren’t intimidated by the atmosphere, the opponent or the task at hand as a second wild card attempting to take down the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.

They defeated the Knights 5-1 to take Game 1 of the best-of-seven playoff series. Road teams that start with a win advance 57.3 percent of the time.

“It wasn’t a great night for us, right?” captain Mark Stone said. “Obviously, we would’ve liked to have come out with a better effort. I don’t know if we thought just being the one seed (it’d) be easy, but we’ve been in this position before. Obviously, the last couple seasons we’ve had slow starts to series. We’ve got enough veteran guys here, enough guys who have won at this level to get this ship turned around.”

Center Jack Eichel admitted that Tuesday was “probably pretty far” from what the Knights are capable of.

They didn’t look like the team that fought through waves of adversity to win the Pacific Division. Their 17 shots on goal were fewer than in any game they had in the regular season.

The Knights were energized at the start, but dodged several close calls in the first period.

An excellent tie-up by left wing Michael Amadio on right wing Mason Appleton prevented a rebound goal 9:12 into the game. Goaltender Laurent Brossoit, in his first playoff start, got away with a giveaway behind his own net. The Knights managed to kill off two Winnipeg power plays.

They weren’t so lucky in the second period.

Left wing Kyle Connor opened the scoring for the Jets by blasting a feed from center Pierre-Luc Dubois into the net from the high slot 1:24 into the period. Dubois followed with a goal off the rush 1:02 later.

Knights coach Bruce Cassidy responded by scrambling his forward lines in search of a spark. He briefly got one. Center William Karlsson fired the puck into the top corner of the net with 4:11 left in the second to fire up the crowd. The Knights appeared to have momentum on their side when right wing Phil Kessel drew a cross-check 1:11 later.

It didn’t last. Winnipeg survived the rest of the period, then took a 3-1 lead on right wing Blake Wheeler’s shot 3:53 into the third.

Bowness’ defensive structure took over from there. The Knights had only two shots on goal in the final period. Center Adam Lowry scored an empty-net goal with 1:21 remaining, then tacked on a power-play goal with 19 seconds left.

The Knights can take solace in the fact they’ve advanced three of five times when losing Game 1 of a series. That includes the 2018 Western Conference Final against Winnipeg, when they won four straight after falling behind 1-0.

“We wanted to come out here and make a statement here in Game 1,” said Eichel, who made his playoff debut. “We weren’t able to do that. We have a resilient group here. We’ll be ready.”

Here are three takeaways from the loss:

1. Top line shines

Bowness appeared to strike gold late in the regular season by moving Mark Scheifele from center to right wing and putting him on a line with Connor and Dubois.

Their magic continued into the playoffs.

The three were a menace for the Knights. Connor had five shots. Scheiefele had four and Dubois three. The Jets have outscored opponents 9-3 with the group on the ice at five-on-five this season.

“Their top guys got in with time and space, and they buried it,” Cassidy said. “And our guys weren’t able to do that.”

2. Stone’s return

Stone let everyone know how he’s feeling 1:02 into the game.

The Knights captain, playing in his first game since Jan. 12 because of a back injury that required surgery, crushed Scheifele into the boards behind the Jets’ net.

Stone didn’t appear to have any restrictions. He played 21:28, the second-highest total on the team.

He admitted to feeling rusty.

“It felt like I had missed three months, obviously,” Stone said. “Hopefully (I) just feel better and better going into the next game.”

3. Jets injuries

Left wing Nikolaj Ehlers didn’t play for the Jets because of an upper-body injury. He is Winnipeg’s sixth-leading scorer with 38 points in 45 games.

Left wing Morgan Barron briefly left the game after being cut by Brossoit’s skate blade in the first period. Barron returned 8:15 into the second with 75 stitches in his face.

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.