Janesville Jets’ season grounded
JANESVILLE — The NAHL season came to a disappointing end for the Janesville Jets on Sunday.
Despite playing at home in the fifth and decisive game of the best-of-five opening-round playoff series against the Springfield Jr. Blues, the Jets’ offense was grounded.
Chris Sitler scored at 1:01 of the period for the game’s only goal as Springfield hung on for a 1-0 win at the Janesville Ice Arena.
Springfield plays the
St. Louis Bandits in the second round of the Midwest Division playoffs.
Janesville, meanwhile, is left wondering what happened to a team that had the best record in the NAHL after the first two months of the season but again failed to make it out of the first round of the playoffs.
“We just got outplayed today by a better team,” Janesville coach Dane Litke said. “You would think we would’ve been a pretty confident team today coming home to play, but that’s not the way we’ve been the last couple of months. We’ve been very up-and-down.”
Janesville outshot Springfield 21-18 but could not get a shot past goalie Gabe Antoni. He stopped all 18 shots he faced, including two pad saves late in the third as Janesville sent an extra attacker on the ice. Janesville goalie Tony Kujava, who made 17 saves, was pulled with 1:28 left in the game to give the Jets a 6-on-5 advantage. The Jets got two good scoring chances in the last 1:28, but Antoni deflected the first shot and wrapped up the second one with a little over a second to play.
In a game where the referees let the players decide the game—no penalties were called—Sitler got the game-winner early in the third. Sitler took a pass from Kyle Cook and beat Kujava over the top of his glove. Jordan Bancroft hit the pipe for Janesville midway through the third, but the puck trickled away from Antoni and off the boards.
“We just didn’t play a good enough game, and Springfield played a very good road game,” Litke said. “And it’s too bad because our guys played so hard last night to get it (the series) back home. You would’ve thought that home ice would’ve been a big advantage.”
SPRINGFIELD 1, JANESVILLE 0
Springfield Jr. Blues 0 0 1—1
Janesville Jets 0 0 0—0
Third Period
S—Chris Sitler (Kyle Cook), 1:01.
Saves—Gabe Antoni (S) 21, Tony Kujava (J) 17.
Time—2:18. Attendance—688.
Apr 29, 2012 at 5:39 p.m.
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I have to agree with the comments on this story. Watched many of time where coach could have capitalized and motivated, yet, instead...decided to cut these young men down to the point where they couldn't turn it around. A tough mental game is one thing but this coach borders on verbally abusive. I don't want to run down the program though because the Jets is one of the best things Janesville has right now and I want to see it grow and get that CUP next year...I just hope the owner can change the coaching strategy and work away from the dump and chase format that they get stuk playing because it then makes power plays too hard to execute. Go Jets!
Apr 29, 2012 at 10:52 a.m.
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Have to agree with previous post. This coach is the biggest loser of them all. Constant negative reinforcement apparently doesn't work to well. Just reading his quotes explains what a knucklehead he is. When he says things like “I don’t know why we can’t score”, sums it up pretty well. You might start by working on a power-play. You gave up more goals than you scored with the man advantage. For $5K a player, one would think he would be out hustling for every kid in the locker room. If your son is thinking about going to the Jets to play-STAY AWAY. One of the worst programs in the league folks. Sorry.
Apr 27, 2012 at 2:22 p.m.
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The Jets team had a great season. The team has a great bunch of guys and if the coaches that had very not so negative and would give some positive praise once in a while the probably would have done much better. Litke scaring players is not the way to get them to perform. You have aleast 3 kids on the team that are divison 1 hockey players. You have the best goaltender in the league and you scare the crap out him. Also, a defenseman who is one of the tops in the league and did not contact on coach from a divison one school. The kids that have committed to college did all of the work without any help from the coach litke. Example a kid hurt his should twice this year is going on to play college hockey and litke did nothing for this kid and get 5,000 for the kid commiting to the college. I look on th NAHL website and see all these goalies from other teams committing to divison 1 schools and comparing the jets goalie to these other goalie the jets goalie has much better numbers and these other goalies have divison 1 rides. Litke pickup the phone and promote the kids on your team. The more kids your promote to division 1 school they better your probably would look. GO Jets
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