WINNIPEG -- There was no pity party bring thrown in the dressing room of the Winnipeg Jets after a 4-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round at Canada Life Centre on Monday.
Winnipeg trails Vegas 3-1 in the best-of-7 series and will play with its season on the line in Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Thursday (10 p.m. ET; ESPN2, CBC, SN, TVAS, ATTSN-RM).
The Jets haven't only been losing games, but also key players the past two weeks.
Top goal-scorer Mark Scheifele was injured during Game 4, two days after top defenseman Josh Morrissey sustained a lower-body injury in Game 3 that will keep him out for the remainder of the series.
Simply, Winnipeg is in a bind.
"Bad luck, I don't know, whatever you want to call it," Jets forward Blake Wheeler said. "It's not something we can really dwell on. We've got to focus on the bodies we have available. Certainly we feel like we have enough to win on Thursday. We'd really like to have the guys that aren't able to go, but we believe in the group we've got that will go out there on Thursday and we're going to fight like [heck]."
Scheifele, who led Winnipeg with 42 goals during the regular season, is the Jets/Atlanta Thrashers leader in playoff goals with 19. He will be reevaluated Tuesday and has not been ruled out for the remainder of the series.
"Yeah, it feels like this year we've been without key players at a lot of moments," Jets forward Pierre-Luc Dubois said. "Obviously it's not something you want to see. He's a great player. He's huge for our team, but you've got to have the next-man-up mentality."
Morrissey, the "Mr. Fix-It" for the Jets, had 76 points (16 goals, 60 assists) in 78 regular-season games and was a primary option in every crucial situation. He sustained a lower-body injury on his first shift, left after his second and was ruled out for the series after the game.
Forward Nikolaj Ehlers, who sustained an upper-body injury April 11, during the second-to-last game of the regular season, has been skating with the Jets but is awaiting medical clearance. Forward Cole Perfetti, out since Feb. 19 because of an upper-body injury, is skating, but in a non-contact jersey.
For those counting at home, that is 212 regular-season points (78 goals, 134 assists) from four players no longer at the disposal of coach Rick Bowness, who has mixed and matched brilliantly to get the best out of those healthy enough to play.
The missing players are three-fifths of the regular top power-play unit. Perfetti was on the second unit.
Now the wounded Jets need to win three straight games to survive and advance against a Golden Knights team that relentlessly finds ways to win.
"These series can be interesting the longer you keep them alive," Wheeler said.
The journey resumes Thursday, and it is a steep climb. Teams that fall into a 3-1 hole in an NHL best-of-7 series hold an all-time record of 31-299 (9.4 percent), including 1-3 last season.
"The odds and all that stuff, and the history, it means nothing to us," Bowness said. "It means nothing, the odds of coming back. The only thing that matters is finding a way to win Thursday.
"You can throw all the history of the League at me, the odds of coming back, that means nothing. The only thing that matters is going in there and winning a hockey game. That's what matters."
Winning may be all that matters, but it's hard to win, especially in the postseason, when you are running out of bodies and taxing your top healthy players.
The Jets have tried.
The goal differential after four games is 15-13. The margins are razor-thin, yet the bodies necessary to force a long, anything-can-happen series are in short supply.
But it is no time to think about the hardships faced to this point and those that remain. The only thought can be about the first shift Thursday, to replicate the things they did during a 5-1 win in Game 1 in Las Vegas and putting a jolt of fear into the top seed in the Western Conference.
"We tell the players every shift matters," Bowness said. "The next shift matters. That's my job. Make sure the next shift, the guys are ready to go.
"We coach the guys we have. That's what matters. The guys we have in that room are going to give everything they can on Thursday night to win the game. As a coach, that's all you can ask."
The pity can wait until if or when the first-round journey ends in defeat.
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