Jets season comes to disappointing end as Golden Knights clinch series

The Vegas Golden Knights made quick work of the Winnipeg Jets, eliminating Winnipeg in five games capping it off with a convincing 4-1 win on Thursday.

The Vegas Golden Knights made quick work of the Winnipeg Jets, eliminating Winnipeg in five games capping it off with a convincing 4-1 win on Thursday.

With their season on the line, the Winnipeg Jets gave up a pair of goals early in the first two periods and never found their footing, as the Golden Knights won a fourth straight game after dropping the first-round series opener.

"I'm so disappointed and disgusted right now," a visibly irritated Jets head coach Rick Bowness told reporters in Vegas after the game.

"It's the same crap we saw in February," he continued, "as soon as we were challenging for first place and teams came after us, we had no push back. This series we had no push back."

Playing without Mark Scheifele who was injured early in Game 4, and without Josh Morrissey who was ruled out for the rest of the series following an injury in Game 3, there was a sense of hope when Nikolaj Ehlers was finally cleared by the medical staff to make his series debut ahead of Game 5. Ehlers had been sidelined following a hit from Ryan Hartman in Winnipeg’s second last game of the season that warranted Hartman a one-game suspension.

But the addition of Ehlers was not the turning point Winnipeg was hoping for.

Less than a minute into the game, an ill-advised clearing attempt started by Neal Pionk playing the puck around the back of the net to Brendan Dillon who continued to guide it along the boards with no Winnipeg player nearby, allowed Mark Stone to make a play coming off the bench along the boards, eventually setting up Chandler Stephenson for his third goal of the series, just 50 seconds in and forcing the Jets to play from behind almost immediately.