Jets Burnt by Hot Flames Goaltending in Narrow Loss

It just wasn't their night, folks.

On Saturday evening, the Winnipeg Jets fell 3-1 to the visiting Calgary Flames to finish off a lengthy homestand.

They just couldn't score.

Despite a landslide of rubber on goaltender Dustin Wolf, the young Flames netminder didn't give Winnipeg an inch.

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Entering the night 4-1-2 on the season-high, eight-game stretch from Canada Life Centre, the Jets once again weren't able to get much run support for goaltender Eric Comrie.

Falling 3-1, Comrie dropped his eighth-straight decision.

“He’s played amazing the whole year," Kyle Connor said of his goaltender. "It’s definitely unfortunate, but we don’t look at that. We see the work he does and the goaltender that he is. We’re not worried at all.”

His teammates have scored just 12 goals in his past eight starts - nowhere near enough for a single win let alone multiple.

“I feel for the guy," captain Adam Lowry said of Comrie. "He’s played amazing all year, he’s great in the locker room, works so hard day-in-day-out, he’s the first guy on the ice, last guy off. At some point, we’ve got to find a way: off shin pads, or bang in a few for him because he’s battling his heart out for us. We are not getting the results for him that he deserves.”

It wasn't like they weren't trying this time around, however.

Nikolaj Ehlers and Dominic Toninato each had partial breaks to which they couldn't cash in.

Wolf was just that good in goal for the visitors.

Matt Coronato opened the scoring for Calgary 13:32 into the first period, blasting home a redirection that found its way past Comrie for the 1-0 score.

Winnipeg maintained a slight shot advantage through both the first and second period, but fell behind two goals thanks to a clean Andrei Kuzmenko wrister from the slot, making it 2-0.

But after pulling ahead 22-16 on the shot chart to start the third period, Winnipeg finally struck.

Defenceman Logan Stanley kept the play alive on the point, feeding partner Colin Miller - who made his return to the lineup following a shattered larynx. He fired the puck towards the net, where captain Adam Lowry perfectly redirected his 11th of the season past Wolf and into the net, cutting the deficit in half.

Winnipeg opted to pull Comrie for the extra attacker with over two minutes to play. But the Jets' valiant effort was cut short thanks to a long-range backhander from Blake Coleman that found the empty net.

Comrie finished the night with 19 stops on the 21 shots he faced, while Wolf turned aside 38 of the 39 pucks put on net by Winnipeg.

"Yeah, he is taking it hard on himself," head coach Scott Arniel said of Comrie. "And he shouldn't, because he's given us a chance every time he goes in there. Guys are great with him. They really are. They really are and they know that they've got to get him some run support. Hopefully we have one of those ones where we break out big time where we can get him that win by us supporting him with some goals."

Following the season-long homestand, Winnipeg will head out on the road for just two games (Utah and Colorado) before returning home to face the same Utah club next Friday.

“That’s definitely a place we want to take pride in, 4-2-2 is a winning record but we want to make teams fear coming into here and hopefully have home-ice advantage," Connor said of the homestand. "We’ll definitely work on that throughout the year. It’s always awesome coming in to play for these fans. Every single game they were behind us, you could really feel it. We had long shifts there tonight. It’s always amazing playing in front of those (fans).”