ST. LOUIS — The Winnipeg Jets can’t escape this house of horrors fast enough.

Facing an opportunity to eliminate the St. Louis Blues and move on to the second round of the playoffs, the visitors once again saw ghosts inside Enterprise Center on Friday night.

An ugly 5-2 loss forces a winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday evening at Canada Life Centre. Fortunately for the Jets, that’s about 1,600 kilometres away from a rink where they’ve gone a combined 0-3 in this series and been outscored 17-5.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” said a visibly frustrated Jets head coach Scott Arniel, who mentioned how they’ve seen a similar script play out here in enemy territory.

“You hope you learn from it the first time. But obviously it happened again. The damage is done. We’ve got to go home. Take care of our business at home.”

JEFF LE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Connor Hellebuyck didn’t see the end of a single game in St. Louis.

The roots for The Exorcist — first the novel, then the 1973 film considered one of the all-time greats — were planted in St. Louis. Writer Peter Blatty was inspired by an article he’d read about a Missouri teen freed from possession of the devil by a Catholic priest.

Perhaps Hollywood might be interested in another based-on-true events tale from the area, one involving a hockey team from the north that experiences stomach-turning, bone-chilling events every time it hits the ice around here?

Grab some popcorn as we dig into where this one went wrong:

The unravelling

This game was actually up for grabs when it hit the midway mark. The score was 1-1 and the Jets had a great chance to grab the lead as Nikolaj Ehlers — making a surprise return to the lineup from a lower-body injury that cost him six straight games — had a two-on-one rush that ended with two quality shots.

Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington stopped both, which certainly seems significant given what happened next.

“If I score on that two-on-one, it’s a different game,” said Ehlers.

JEFF LE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS St. Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington stopped 21 of 23 pucks that came his way.

St. Louis scored three goals in a 126-second span — at 11:34, 12:27 and 13:40 of the middle frame — to seize full control. The sold-out crowd was lapping it up and the overwhelmed Jets couldn’t do anything to stop it. Another goal at 16:57 put a punctuation mark on the offensive party.

“There are moments in these games where they can decide games. Those four or five minutes did,” said Ehlers.

St. Louis — which might feed off its crowd better than any team in the league — has now won 15 straight games in their barn dating to the regular season.

“Things just kind of got carried away,” said forward Cole Perfetti, who had scored his first playoff goal earlier in the period to tie it up 1-1. “It happened a couple times now in this series where we fell asleep for a few minutes and they jumped on us.”

‘We want Connor’

It’s a development few saw coming. Connor Hellebuyck, who learned this past week he’s nominated for both the Vezina Trophy (fifth time) and Hart Trophy (first time), didn’t see the end of a single game in St. Louis.

Three starts. Three pulls. Sixteen goals against. And extremely loud “We Want Connor” chants from the Blues faithful rained down every time Eric Comrie came in for mop-up duty.

JEFF LE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Connor Hellebuyck gives up a goal with St. Louis Blues left wing Nathan Walker and Winnipeg Jets centre Cole Perfetti (left) in front of the net.

How to explain that?

“This isn’t about Connor. Tonight was not about Connor. Tonight we imploded in front of him,” said Arniel.

Philip Broberg opened the scoring in the first period by taking advantage of a moving screen, something the Blues have done so effectively in this series. We won’t really fault Hellebuyck for that, nor for the 2-1 goal in which Broberg made a terrific pass to Nathan Walker for the one-timer.

But the 3-1 goal by Brayden Schenn was a shot Hellebuyck needs to stop, even if the St. Louis captain used defenceman Neal Pionk as a bit of a screen.

You’d like Hellebuyck to fight through some traffic to get a piece of Cam Fowler’s shot that led to the fourth, and Alexey Toropchenko’s fifth can’t go in, either.

“Definitely, self-inflicted. I don’t need to talk about Bucky. Bucky has been phenomenal for us all year, and he’s continued to do that,” said Ehlers.

“We’ve got to be better. We know when we play the right way, play well, making the right reads, we are a really good team, and we’ve showed that in this series. We’ve got to keep that up in 60 minutes.”

Bottom line: The Jets need more, much more, from Hellebuyck. Along with everyone else.

JEFF LE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS St. Louis Blues center Brayden Schenn (10) celebrates with teammates after scoring against the Jets during the second period in Game 6 Friday in St. Louis.

“One-game showdown. That’s what it is. Our whole group. Not just Connor,” said Arniel.

“It’s our goalie against their goalie. It’s like I mentioned to you guys and it’s getting repetitive, it’s our best players against their best players and it’s our grinders going against theirs. It’s specialty teams. It’s D-zone coverage. It’s what we do as a group. It’s getting to Jet hockey here, getting back to it again and you know what, I have a lot of confidence in our group. Not just Helly. I have a lot of confidence in our group. You win one hockey game, you move on to the next round. Thank you.”

Video games

Broberg’s game-opening goal sure looked like Pavel Buchnevich may have been guilty of contact in the crease with Hellebuyck, and the Jets took their time considering a challenge.

Arniel even called a timeout for further deliberations but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the risk, since it was a 1-0 deficit at 6:05 into the game.

“I’ve got lots of confidence in our penalty kill. It’s just Buchnevich went in and then Sammy (Dylan Samberg) gave him a shove,” said Arniel.

“I’d called the timeout because we weren’t 100 percent sure. And then we decided that it had more to do with Sammy pushing him then it did him making first contact with Helly.”

The Jets got burned by a video review early in the second when Morgan Barron burst in on a beautiful rush and beat Binnington with a wrist shot.

The Blues launched an offside challenge, and replays showed Mason Appleton was inside the blueline when Barron entered. The goal was wiped off.

Silver linings

If there was one positive to the game — aside from the fact it’s the final one Winnipeg will play in St. Louis this year — it’s that the power play, which had been ice cold, showed signs of heating up with a pair of goals on the night.

Perfetti scored with the man advantage early in the second period, batting a puck out of the air to tie the game 1-1. Then, midway through the third period, Nino Niederreiter poked a loose puck over the line during a goal-mouth scramble.

Winnipeg, which entered the game 2-for-14 in the series, went 2-for-6. The penalty kill also did a great job, going 6-for-6.

“It’s nice to get the power play rolling. We had some good looks, even on the ones that we didn’t score on, we had good looks and we had chances and we generated,” said Perfetti.

“Getting two it’s a good confidence going home. We’re right there. So having that mindset, that confidence in our group, that’s going to go a long way and we’re going to have to take that into the next game.”

Key play

Cam Fowler’s goal with just over six minutes left in the second was the third in rapid succession and essentially buried any hopes of a Winnipeg comeback.

Three stars

1. STL D Philip Broberg: 1 goal, 1 assist, +4
2. STL RW Alexey Toropchenko: 1 goal, 1 assist
3. STL LW Nathan Walker: 1 goal

JEFF LE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Captain Adam Lowry looks on as St. Louis celebrates after a goal by Philip Broberg during the first period Friday at Enterprise Center.

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Mike McIntyre Reporter

Mike McIntyre is a sports reporter whose primary role is covering the Winnipeg Jets. After graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College in 1995, he spent two years gaining experience at the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 1997, where he served on the crime and justice beat until 2016. Read more about Mike.

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