DENVER – Tonight, the Winnipeg Jets will try to do something only two teams have been able to do this National Hockey League season, and that’s find a way to earn two points at Ball Arena against the Colorado Avalanche.
So far, only the Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes have beat the Avalanche on their home ice, both by 5-4 shootout scores, in November. To date, no one has been able to beat the Avalanche in regulation in Colorado.
So that’s the challenge that lies ahead for the Jets (15-16-2), who are looking to even their record on a three-game road trip after a 1-0 loss to St. Louis in the opener on Wednesday.
The Jets pressured the Blues in the third to try and find the equalizer, but came up short.
“At the end of the day, it's find a way individually first. Come out and put your best foot forward and then, as a group, we need to be more consistent throughout the 60 minutes,” said head coach Scott Arniel after the loss to the Blues. “We have to do it more consistently, with more bodies and more people.”
The emphasis will be on a quality start when the puck drops in Colorado. In the three games leading up to the divisional tilt in St. Louis, Winnipeg’s penalty kill came up big with two kills in the opening frame to allow the Jets to build momentum. Against the Blues, they killed off one minor penalty but Winnipeg was outshot 11-6 in the period.
“It's one shift on, one shift off. It kind of seems like here, so it's been going on for seems like a long time here, almost a month,” said Kyle Connor, who enters the night with 299 career goals. “It's not the way we want to play, and it's just keep going on. So we got to find a way to get out of it.”
The frustrating part for the Jets is they certainly had the scoring chances to tie things up. Vladislav Namestnikov had a rush chance that resulted in a net front scramble where Winnipeg couldn’t beat Joel Hofer, and Gustav Nyquist nearly found Luke Schenn for a shorthanded marker, but the pass to the backdoor side didn’t connect.
The emphasis for the Jets is always on defending, but they’d also like to see themselves generate a bit more in the offensive zone, get the puck to the middle of the ice, and create more chaos net front.
Josh Morrissey, who had two shots on goal and played 22:39 against St. Louis, says there are ways the defence can get more pucks toward the net.
“That’s where you have to use your feet to find a lane. Sometimes those one-timers or slap shots, guys deter away from blocking those a bit more,” he said. “At the end of the day, you want to get it past the first layer. It seemed like against St. Louis their net front guys were knocking down a lot of pucks. That’s where I think if you can get more heat on it, or our forwards get inside position, maybe we get a few more of those through.”
