ST. LOUIS - The Winnipeg Jets continue their best-of-seven series with the St. Louis Blues tonight at Enterprise Center with Game 3.
Winnipeg won both of the first two games and hold a 2-0 lead in the series, but Mark Scheifele - who has two goals and five points in the series - expects the Blues to bring their best on Thursday night.
"It’s going to be a big test going to St. Louis and playing in front of their fans. We’re excited for the challenge," he said after Wednesday's 35-minute skate. "We know they’re going to be ready.”
In the regular season, the Jets won both of their visits to St. Louis, with the second of those coming right after the 4-Nations Face-Off. Since that shootout loss to Winnipeg, the Blues have won 12 straight on home ice. During that span, they averaged 4.62 goals per-game, while giving up just 1.79.
"What happens in the regular season ends when the regular season ends," said Josh Morrissey, when asked if Winnipeg can look to their regular season success on Thursday. "When you go on the road, sometimes it's easier to just simplify your game, and I think that's something we've done a good job of. So, playoffs, we're going to have to continue to try to do the same things that made us successful on the road this year."
The first periods in both of the opening two games of the series have been fast and physical. In Game 1, a total of four goals were scored with another pair scored in Game 2. With the venue switch, the Jets know they’ll have to manage the opening 10 minutes and the emotion of the St. Louis crowd.
“We have to know tonight it’s going to be a different animal. Their whole crowd is going to be great,” said Nino Niederreiter. “I’ve been here, fortunately enough, in the playoffs before, it’s a hard building to win in. It’s something which we all know, but we have to take it shift by shift - as cliche as it sounds - and take it period by period and go from there.”
Dylan DeMelo, who missed Wednesday’s practice for maintenance, was a full participant in the morning skate on Thursday. Gabriel Vilardi remained in a non-contact jersey, so the forward remains day-to-day.
The line rushes looked like this, with Connor Hellebuyck expected to start for Winnipeg:
Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo
Niederreiter-Namestnikov-Perfetti
Tanev-Lowry-Appleton
Gustafsson-Barron-Anderson-Dolan
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Stanley-Schenn
One of the other big differences in the series shifting to Missouri is the fact St. Louis will have the last change. In the last regular season meeting between the two teams back in February, Jets head coach Scott Arniel noted that Scheifele’s line saw a lot of Robert Thomas’ trio – which has been the match-up so far in this series.
“We looked back at a lot of their match-ups and who (the Thomas line) has played against, they’ve gone up against the other team’s top lines,” said Arniel. “They’re good players and it’s a lot like what we ask of our top players about playing well without the puck, buying into defending first. That’s what they’re getting on their side. Right now there might be a bit of a trade-off happening, but I expect that match-up to stay the same.”
A lot of the emphasis from Blues head coach Jim Montgomery the last two days has been about wanting his team to get to the middle against Winnipeg a little more frequently. In Game 2, Natural Stat Trick had the high-danger chances at five-on-five in the Jets favour by a 12-3 margin.
Vladislav Namestnikov and the Jets know they’ll need to be on point with their structure to keep the advantage in their favour.
“The way we play we keep them mostly to the outside,” said Namestnikov. “We have to pay attention to the little details and not let them in the middle. We did that in the first two games so hopefully we can continue.”
With Namestnikov’s line (with Nino Niederreiter and Cole Perfetti) on the ice, Winnipeg has outshot St. Louis 8-2 and have allowed just one high-danger chance against.
“We’re getting the puck deep. I think we can generate more shots on net and get in front of their goalie,” said Namestnikov. “We can definitely improve our game, but there have been chances that we didn’t capitalize on. We have to keep building on that.”
In the regular season, it was Winnipeg that snapped the NHL-best 12-game win streak the Blues put together. Tonight, if they want to end another 12-game streak that St. Louis has, they’ll have to be at their best.
“As this time of the year goes, your best players have to be your best players if you’re going to have success. Your role players have to step up and do things maybe they haven’t done in the course of 82 games,” said Arniel.
“When you see success at the end of the season, that’s what usually ends up happening.”
Puck drop is set for 8:30 pm CT.
