GAMEDAY: Avalanche at Jets

WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Jets begin the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Sunday night when the host the Colorado Avalanche in Game 1 of their best-of-seven Western Conference First Round series. The Jets ended the regular season on Thursday with a 4-2 win against the Vancouver Canucks to end the season on an eight-game winning streak.

Over the past couple of days the Jets players and Rick Bowness have been clear that there is much different feeling in the room coming into this years playoffs as opposed to last year.

"Every year is a little bit different. We've come up short in here, so you have to take a bit of a different approach. This is the hungriest I've ever seen this group," said Mason Appleton.

"We really have a lot of belief in this group and in this team and we're coming into the playoffs with what we feel is one of the hottest teams in the league. Playoffs are a different animal, but we're going to try to keep that rolling."

Another sign that this group is ready to go for tonight is Nikolaj Ehlers answer to the question what will be key for his line with Sean Monahan and Tyler Toffoli in this series against Colorado. Ehlers pointed to defence first.

"Shut the other lines down and score some goals. Pretty simple, when you say it like that. I think Toff, Mony and I have been able to create some good things and some chemistry, and we've played well," said Ehlers.

"There have still been some things that we needed to get better at and change, and that's something that we've talked about. We're going to try and keep improving every shift we go out there and work our butts off for this team."

Ehlers is excited to be playing in his first Whiteout since 2019. COVID made sure there were no fans in this building in 2021, the Jets missed the postseason in 2022 and the Danish forward only played in Game 5 in Vegas because he was injured at the start of the series in 2023. Managing the emotions that come with the energy from the fans tonight will be another key.

"It's like that in every game. We're going to just go out there and be ready to go, play the way that we want to play, and work hard for each other," said Ehlers.

"I think and hope that the fans will be able to give us an extra push. I believe in that. So we're ready."

The Jets are the stingiest team when it comes to surrendering goals and the Avalanche are the league's highest scoring team. It's the ultimate challenge for Winnipeg's much improved defence first philosophy that was key to their success over the eight game win streak to close out the regular season which followed a six game winless slide.

“We’re pretty happy with the way we played, obviously, at the end. I think there’s two things that came up when we had that six-game slide that our puck management got us in a lot of trouble and our puck management tonight will be absolutely crucial," said Bowness.

"And again, just sometimes there was some breakdowns with our structure that allowed the opposition to gain some momentum, so we’re going to be really paying attention to those two because both of those will really hurt us against a team like the Avs.”

Facing one of the likely Hart Trophy candidates in Nathan MacKinnon and the 2022 Norris Trophy winner in Cale Makar will no doubt keep the Jets busy for however long this series goes. Appleton says he looks forward to the challenge.

"It's one we want. You pride yourself on these kinds of matchups and these kinds of games. It's no different than trying to do the task against Edmonton a few years back, playing against those two big guys," said Appleton.

"It's that same kind of thing going up against Rantanen and MacKinnon but we believe in our systems, we believe in how we play the game of hockey and if we play our game we can do a good job against them."

This series is the sixth time in franchise history that the Jets have home ice advantage.