WINNIPEG – The Jets wrap up four straight games with the Central Division this afternoon when they host the Dallas Stars at 2 pm CT.
Winnipeg has won three straight games following an impressive 6-3 win over Nashville on Thursday opening up a five-game homestand. Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Alex Iafallo dominated for the second straight game and interim head coach Scott Arniel is impressed.
“Five-on-five, I thought we were, we did, I mean our specialty teams were good but at the end of the day we did a lot of good things. Another great example, again, Mark and KC pouring back on that backcheck and creating a turnover and going back and scoring. Those are the things that are easy to keep showing the players,” said Arniel yesterday.
“It isn't just the highlight goal. I mean, obviously, KC's goal was fantastic, but it's what happened down at the other end of the rink. That's what we've been trying to preach. It's going to break down sometimes. It isn't always going to work. But, at the end of the day, these guys have been doing this now, we've been pretty consistent with it here for the last two or three weeks and it's getting results for us.”
The Stars come into today’s game with one of the best penalty kills in the NHL, while their power play is struggling.
“Yeah, I don’t know what their issues are, in the sense that sometimes there’s a way that things kind of work themselves out. No different from us, a few weeks ago, we were worried about our power play and now it’s doing what it needs to do. We’ll let Pete (DeBoer) worry about his situation there in Dallas,” said Arniel.
“We’ve got to take care of our business. It’s easy. Like I said, it’s rare because power plays are usually running hot right now. Jersey is running at an unreal number. We saw what Edmonton did last year, but they did it on a consistent basis. We do have our work cut out for us with their penalty kill, it is real good right now.”
There is no morning skate today so here are the line rushes from practice on Friday afternoon.
PROJECTED LINEUP
Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Gustafsson-Kupari
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt
Hellebuyck
STAT OF THE DAY
Alex Iafallo’s four assists on Tuesday and Mark Scheifele’s four assists on Thursday tied a franchise record for most assists in a game, which has been done 20 times. It’s the first time in franchise history that teammates have had a four-assist game in consecutive games.
