DALLAS - The Winnipeg Jets have yet to find a win on the road during the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs, something that is certainly unexpected for a group that led the National Hockey League with 26 victories away from home this season.
Heading into Game 4 tonight against the Dallas Stars, and trailing 2-1 in the best-of-seven series, defenceman Dylan Samberg feels tonight would be a great time to snap that skid.
“This is a really important game for us,” said Samberg. “We have to find a way to get one here.”
Concise, to the point, and accurate.
Captain Adam Lowry said that doesn’t necessarily change Winnipeg’s preparation, though.
“We’re just approaching it like every playoff game before,” he said. “After watching the video yesterday, you could see a lot of areas where we were hurting ourselves. We were getting out of our defensive structure – things like our offensive structure, our forecheck, our neutral zone defence, things like that were a little loose and Dallas exposed that.”
Late in the regular season, the Jets earned a 4-0 win at American Airlines Center that helped propel them to the Presidents’ Trophy and top spot in the Central Division. The playoffs are always a different animal, of course, and head coach Scott Arniel is fully aware of that. Even in the 5-2 loss in Game 3, he felt there were positives that the Jets can build on.
After all, it was a 2-2 game in the third period.
“When our forecheck is really good, when we’re holding onto pucks, getting on the forecheck and creating turnovers, it forces the opposition to play defence and they’re not having that transition offense game,” said Arniel. “Let’s make them defend down there, let’s wear their top people out playing defence first before we get ourselves trading chances.”
After Monday’s optional skate, the Jets held a full morning skate on Tuesday and based on the line rushes, no line-up changes are expected:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Perfetti
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Tanev-Barron-Iafallo
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Fleury-Miller
While the Jets line-up projects to be the same, the Dallas roster may get a boost with the return of Miro Heiskanen.
The Finnish defenceman hasn’t played since suffering a knee injury on January 28. The 25-year-old had 25 points in 50 games this season, and had assists in five straight games (including the day of his injury).
“We experienced it with (Nikolaj Ehlers), (Gabriel Vilardi), (Josh Morrissey), and (Mark Scheifele),” said Lowry, referencing the boost the Jets got when those players came back from injury in the postseason. “Anytime you get an elite player back in the line-up, it takes some pressure off the other guys. Especially on their back end, he’s an all-star world-class defenceman.”
Winnipeg’s forecheck was a big part of the shutout win in Game 2 of this series, and Lowry says it needs to be an asset again tonight – especially if Heiskanen is back and trying to get back up to speed.
“He’s been out for quite some time, maybe the timing won’t be there,” Lowry said. “I expect him to jump in and be a big-time player for them. He’s one more guy you have to be aware about.
“It just makes a deep Dallas team even deeper.”
In the home portion of this series, it was Lowry’s line that saw a lot of Mikko Rantanen’s trio with Roope Hintz and Mikael Granlund. Since the series has shifted to Dallas and Stars head coach Pete DeBoer has had last change, Rantanen is seeing more time against Scheifele’s line with Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi.
Clearly it’s a match-up the Stars are looking for, and that can be a motivating factor for Scheifele’s line.
“The one thing about Scheifs’ line, they won a lot of match-ups this year – whether they were seeing (Nathan) MacKinnon, or (Connor) McDavid, the top guys in the west we see a lot of,” said Arniel. “That’s part of what they’ve grown as players, that’s maturity of them as a line. They’ve done a really good job of defending first and making that other line play in their end of the rink.”
So it’ll be a motivated Jets group that hits the ice tonight at American Airlines Center. Yes, Dallas has won four of the five home games they’ve played in the postseason but a Jets win not only ties things up, but home ice advantage then slides back into Winnipeg’s back pocket
“We have been the best team in the league all year and that gives us all the confidence in the world,” said Cole Perfetti. “Obviously, these are tough environments and if you want to win the Stanley Cup you have to win on the road. So we have to figure that out and I think we have all the confidence in the world, we were the best team in the league. There is a lot of confidence in our group and in that room.”
Puck drop is set for 7 pm CT.
