PITTSBURGH – A season-long six-game road trip begins tonight for the Winnipeg Jets, and what a trek it will be.
Six games over three time zones, beginning in the Eastern Conference tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins, with further stops in Nashville, Minnesota, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Dallas by the start of December.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a road trip like this, this long, or this crazy,” said Rasmus Kupari. “It’s a good test for us. I’m sure all the boys are looking forward to that.”
Just like they have all season, the Jets (16-3-0) will rely on their ability to take things a day at a time, balancing rest and recovery with a tough schedule that begins with a back-to-back set in Pittsburgh and Nashville on Friday and Saturday.
“Starting with a back-to-back isn’t the easiest thing,” said Mason Appleton, who will be playing in his 300th game as a Jet tonight. “Obviously no excuses for this group. We liked our game last game and we’re looking to keep that rolling tonight.”
Winnipeg will be trying to build off a memorable 6-3 win over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday. It snapped a mini two-game losing streak for the Jets, and gave them a bit of revenge on a Florida team that became the first to shut out the Jets on November 16.
“We just played way faster than we did in Florida,” said Kupari. “We moved the puck well. We went through the neutral zone way quicker than we did there. Then obviously we scored some goals, we didn’t score any back in Florida. That was a good game overall for us.”
There won’t be any changes to the Jets line-up tonight against Pittsburgh. Connor Hellebuyck will get his third consecutive start after making 20 saves on 23 shots against Florida on Tuesday.
The skaters in front of him will look like this:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Iafallo
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Fleury-Miller
The Penguins (7-10-4) are coming off a tough 3-2 overtime loss to Tampa Bay on Tuesday. It was another case this season where Pittsburgh got out to a two-goal lead, but couldn’t come away with two points.
In fact, when the Penguins lost 6-3 to Winnipeg back in October, the Penguins built a 2-0 lead before the Jets scored three unanswered to go up 3-2 before the end of the second period.
It’s the type of situation that reminds Jets head coach Scott Arniel of the previous road trip, when his club faced motivated teams like the Panthers and Lightning after tough losses.
“I really liked the way we got back to playing our game in the second game against Florida,” Arniel said. “I really want to stress that tonight. There is a Jet way of playing and we have to make sure we’re doing that and making it hard on Pittsburgh. Let them make the adjustments to us.”
Sidney Crosby comes into the game sitting on 599 goals and aims to become the 21st player in National Hockey League history to hit 600. Winnipeg would prefer that happens on any other night, and will rely on their defensive structure to open up offensive opportunities in Pittsburgh’s end.
“It’s always a different animal when you’re playing in their barn and they can control the match-ups,” said Appleton. “They still have some of the best players in the world in that locker room. Offensively, they can kill you if you give them too much time. We’re going to try and play our game, really defend hard, and make it hard on those top guys all night.”
It all comes down to playing “Jet hockey” as Arniel likes to say. Put in another effort like against Florida, and Winnipeg will put themselves in a good position to start the road trip on the right note.
“Every opponent is its own different animal,” said Arniel. “We have to make sure that we go take the game away from them. Nothing is going to be handed to us. We’ve done a good job resetting after our last game – no matter what happened – we have to move forward.
“Pittsburgh is going to be a tough out. We have to make sure we’re good.”
Puck drop is set for 6 pm CT.
ICE CHIPS
Logan Stanley joined the team on the ice at the morning skate after the formal portion of the session had concluded. There isn’t a timeline for Stanley - who has missed the last four games with a mid-body injury – to return just yet.
“He’s been on the ice the last three days or so,” said Arniel. “Right now it’s about keeping his legs, making sure he feels comfortable getting out there doing that stuff. We’ll play it as we go along here. No real practice days here with a back-to-back, Sunday off, then playing Monday. We don’t really expect to see him until next week.”
