GAMEDAY: Blues at Jets

WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Jets play the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night in the second half of their two-game homestand at 7 CT.

The Jets (36-15-5) Arizona 4-3 on Sunday night and have now won three straight and six of their last seven contests. Five of Winnipeg’s last seven victories have been by one goal including the OT win over the Coyotes.

“Yeah, we’re comfortable playing in tight games. We’ve been doing that throughout the year. Whether it’s one goal, two goals, whatever, down a couple, we’ve got confidence in our game that we can win different ways,” said Josh Morrissey.

Obviously, this time of year the games get tighter and every point matters for every team in the hunt and trying to jostle for position. You want to continue to be good in close games, and often it’s the little details that make the difference one way or the other. Just continue to be sharp in all areas of the game.”

Morrissey has nine assists during a four-game point streak, which includes back-to-back three-assist games. He is just the third player in franchise history to have three assists in consecutive games (Blake Wheeler – Dec. 1-3/17 and Marc Savard Nov. 11-12/05). Morrissey has assisted eight of Winnipeg’s past 13 goals.

“The league is funny. Sometimes you play great and don’t get rewarded. Other nights you might just play average and things go well. I think our power play is starting to click recently,” said Morrissey.

“Sometimes you get an extra assist here and there on the power play and that helps your five-on-five game where you feel a little bit better with the puck. But for me, I’m not trying to change anything or do anything different.”

Sean Monahan will be back in the lineup after missing Sunday’s game with an illness and will remain between Nikolaj Ehlers and Alex Iafallo. That trio played extremely well against the Blackhawks last Friday and the chemistry between Monahan and Ehlers is starting to grow.

“We’re starting to make reads off of each other. I’m starting to really know when he wants the puck and where he is,” said Monahan.

“When you do that and you start playing consistently together, I think good things are going to happen.” 

Laurent Brossoit will get the start in goal tonight and has recorded a save percentage of .923 or better in eight of his last nine appearances.

"It's an important game tonight. He's played a couple of important games this year and he deserves it with his play. Again, what's coming up? We've got 16 games in March and those back-to-backs," said Bowness.

"We said right from training camp that we're going to try to reduce the workload on Bucky and we're doing that. LB's been playing very, very well and there's absolutely no reason that he shouldn't play in these games."

The Blues are coming off a 6-1 loss in Detroit and have dropped three of their last four games. Recent struggles aside, St. Louis remains in the hunt for a playoff spot in the Western Conference as they are four points back of Nashville for the final wild card spot with two games in hand.

“Those kids are playing really well right now. They're scoring goals. The power play looks good. They get great goaltending so they're a good team. They're four points out so we saw Arizona come in the other night and how desperate they were because they had lost 11 in a row,” said Bowness.

We're going to have the same thing on our hands tonight. They're four points out. I know they've got a couple of games in hand, but they don't mean much unless you win them. When you're that close, you know they're going to be coming at us."