GAMEDAY: Flyers at Jets

WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Jets franchise record 11-game win streak came to an end on Thursday when they fell 2-1 to the Nashville Predators. The Jets look to begin a new win streak starting on Saturday when the Philadelphia Flyers come to town for the first meeting between the two this season.

Winnipeg is now one of seven teams since 2000-01 to have recorded 42 or more wins through 60 games of a season, and you could say they have grown accustomed to that winning feeling at the end of each game.

“The guys really felt like we could have kept this going and that’s great. That’s part of our group, they’re still hungry to win hockey games,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel.

“We’re not taking things for granted. But, at the same time, we’ve done a really good job in the past of now that’s done, it’s over and we’ve got to worry about the Flyers.”

Don't forget to watch the Jets pregame show "The Check In" at 12:30 CT on YouTube, X and Facebook.

To sit around the top of the standings for as long as the Jets have this season means they have figured out how to make sure losing consecutive games hasn’t happened. They will now face a team from the Metropolitan Division six straight contests.

“I think you learn lessons along the way. We’ve also responded in different ways, even if it wasn’t coming off a long-extended streak of wins. When you lose hockey games, it’s (about) making sure that you get back to doing what you have to do to win,” said Arniel.

“Now, we’re seeing five teams from the east, two teams on this stretch that we haven’t seen all year long and we’re in March, being the Flyers and the Devils.”

The Jets will make a few changes to the lineup tonight with Colin Miller coming in for Haydn Fleury, Connor Hellebuyck will start in goal and Morgan Barron returns after getting injured in Montreal way back on January 28. The Jets have won eight of the nine games they have played since Barron went out of the lineup.

“Yeah, it was a lot of fun to watch. I mean, obviously you'd rather be out there, but I see the way the guys kind of competed every night and showed up. I mean, 11 games is hard to do in this league. You're playing a good team, a capable team every night. It takes a lot of competing, a lot of mental resiliency to kind of be able to do that,” said Barron.

“Obviously it felt like even the game there in Nashville, I thought we played a good game. Obviously, their goaltender played well, and we just couldn't find the goals. But, yeah, it was a treat to watch the guys go out there and play like that every night.”

Barron will return to the fourth line with Rasmus Kupari and Alex Iafallo and help out on the penalty kill, David Gustafsson will come out.

“He's a guy that certainly has size, power, big power forward. He's responsible without the puck. He's heavy on the forecheck, we use him on the penalty kill. He's just a guy that you're comfortable with as a coach,” said Arniel.

“You know what you're kind of going to get every night. We missed his size. Gus did a great job coming in, with all those injuries that we had at that time.”

Hellebuyck extended his personal winning streak to eight games on Wednesday which is the second longest in franchise history and is one win shy from tying his own franchise record (9GP in 2017-18). He leads the league in GAA (2.02), save percentage (.926%), and shutouts (6). He’s gone 21-2-2 in his past 25 games and has eight more wins than the next goalie in the league (Andrei Vasilevskiy - 28).