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A Jets victory would give Winnipeg a commanding 3-1 advantage and push the Blues into sudden-death mode as the series shifted back to Manitoba late Wednesday night.

The Blues played an awesome Game 3, but the competitive circumstances made them look even mightier than they are. They jumped the Jets, took an immediate 2-0 lead and rode the crowd-fueled momentum to a lopsided 7-2 victory.

The Jets were mostly awful in Game 3, but the competitive circumstances made them look more vulnerable than they are. They never really got their footing in that game –- and eventually their frustration got the best of them.

Winnipeg was laser focused on earning a better start in Game 4. Like any team facing this situation, the Jets wanted to survive the first 10 minutes, calm the crowd, then settle into their game.

And the Jets did just that while taking a 1-0 lead. But then, midway through Sunday’s game, they fell apart and staggered to a 5-1 loss.

What happened?

“I don’t know. They obviously got that second (goal) and then made a bad read on the third one and it ends up in the back of the net, and then it gets away from us,� Jets center Mark Scheifele told reporters. “We kind of unraveled a little bit. It’s more our doing than theirs.

“I don’t know if it’s the moment we’re at or whatever, but it’s uncharacteristic of our group.�

The Jets posted the best record in the NHL this season by maintaining firm structure in their defensive game. That structure broke down again Sunday, allowing the Blues to create havoc in front of beleaguered Winnipeg goaltender Connor Hellebuyck.

“The coverage part of it, there’s ways we have to play,� Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “One is obviously, if there are people getting to the net, we have to get them out of there before they try to get their screens. We’ve got to box out earlier, those types of things. There’s a lot, like I mentioned, of coverage stuff.

“We know how to do those things. We’ve been doing it all year long. We just have to get back to doing it. We were better at it in the first (period), we did a great job at it in the first.�

Now the Jets will try to reestablish their game for a full 60 minutes when they get back home.

“We really wanted to come home either winning it or up 3-1,� Arniel said. “We’re not. Now it’s a best-of-three (series). Our best players have to be better than their best players.�

Here is what folks have been writing about the playoffs:

Sonny Sachdeva, Sportsnet: “It had been 1,041 days since Gabriel Landeskog scored a goal on NHL ice. One-thousand-forty-one days since the Colorado Avalanche captain had the chance to hear the goal horn bellow at Ball Arena, to raise his hands high while teammates mobbed him out on the sheet, to hear his name announced to the delight of a raucous Denver crowd. The veteran winger got a pared-down preview of the feeling two weeks ago, when he potted his first goal in three years during an AHL conditioning stint. But Saturday night, under the big-league lights, Landeskog truly got his moment, scoring his first NHL goal since June 2022 to help the Avalanche claim a convincing Game 4 win over the Dallas Stars. It was no gift either, not a puck haphazardly deflected off a skate or a tap-in at the net front — it was vintage No. 92.�

Pierre LeBrun, The Athletic: “The Avs were by far the superior team Saturday night but overall it continues to be a tight-checking series. Neither team cheats for offense, every inch of ice is hard-earned. That’s what you get when you have two of the very top Cup contenders in an opening-round series that should actually be played in the conference final . . . My sense of it is that a tight-checking series is more comfortable for the way the Stars are built and approach the game. But the Avalanche’s aggressive redo of their roster in-season I believe has made them more adept at dealing with this kind of series. They’ve got the personnel for it now. Of course the Avs would rather run-and-go and fly up and down the ice, kind of like they did in the second period Saturday night, but they know the Stars well and understand that’s not going to be possible for the most part in this series. They’ve got to be patient in creating their offense. They played a near perfect game Saturday night that way.�

Adam Proteau, The Hockey News: “The Lightning have now cut the Panthers’ series lead in half, serving notice that they’re not going to roll over simply because Florida won the first two games. From our vantage point, we believe Tampa Bay is likely to extend the series to at least six games. And you can bet the other teams still active in the Eastern Conference playoffs – we’re looking at you, Toronto Maple Leafs – are elated to see the Lightning and Panthers beating up on each other. Because the longer this series goes, the harder it will be for Florida or Tampa Bay when they eventually take on their second-round opponents. That said, right now, the second round seems very far away for the Lightning and Panthers. Florida had the chance to take a commanding 3-0 series lead over Tampa Bay with a victory Saturday, but the Bolts battled back – and now, the heavyweight bout between two recent Stanley Cup champs looks like it’s going to be increasingly brutal with every game that takes place.� 

Matt Larkin, Daily Faceoff: “Which version of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Game 5 do you choose to see? The ever-faithful optimist might frame it as a night in which a gritty team did everything but win. The Leafs overcame a sluggish start and 2-0 first-period deficit to draw even. Playing their best lockdown defense of the series to date, they held the Ottawa Senators without a shot for 16:22 at one point and only let 20 reach goaltender Anthony Stolarz in close to four periods of hockey. When the Sens took the lead partway through the third period, the Leafs answered again with a late equalizer on an Oliver Ekman-Larsson one-timer. With John Tavares temporarily missing in overtime after taking a big hit from Artem Zub, a somewhat discombobulated Toronto power play still managed to do everything but score on Linus Ullmark, buzzing the net. They showed plenty of backbone and played well enough to clinch the series. Now how about the beaten-down pessimist’s take? They may be seeing ghosts after the 4-3 Ottawa victory, which came at the 17:42 mark of overtime when star defenseman Jake Sanderson’s long-distance wrist shot beat a screened Stolarz. They may point out that Toronto chased the game, digging itself a hole with that flat-footed first period. They might argue the Leafs looked rattled by the Tavares injury in overtime, playing hot potato with the puck, showing the frazzled-under-pressure identity that has plagued the Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner era. They might shudder at the memory of 2021, when the Leafs led the Montreal Canadiens 3-1 in a series and blew consecutive opportunities to close out the matchup in overtime only to lose Game 7. And they might point to one terrifying statistic: the Leafs are now 1-12 all-time in closeout games during the Matthews/Marner era.�

MEGAPHONE

"That's our identity in here, we've built that years ago. It’s a mentality that we have, that we're never going to quit no matter what. We've shown that in the series so far, maybe a little bit too much. We’ve got to find a way to play with a lead. It shows a lot of character, and we can be really proud of that, but you don't want to do that every night.�

Oilers star Leon Draisaitl, after his team earned another comeback victory.