PENTICTON – It’s a quick turnaround for the Winnipeg Jets at the 2024 Young Stars Classic.
Winnipeg is coming off a 4-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday afternoon and will be right back on the ice at the South Okanagan Events Centre at 1 pm CT when they face the Edmonton Oilers.
The Jets rookies looked tired in the third period allowing the Canucks rookies to score twice in the final frame. Brad Lambert, who had a goal and an assist in the game said the team might have run out of gas.
“The first two periods that we played hard, we forechecked hard. We were getting on them and once we got into their zone, we were able to get sustained zone time and get a lot of shots to the net and kind of outplay them that way,” said Lambert Sunday afternoon.
“In the third we ran out of gas; we weren’t getting on them. We weren’t playing as fast, we weren’t getting pucks behind them, we weren’t getting zone time, they kind of did that to us. As a result, we kind of spent the whole period in our end, we can’t expect to win playing in our own zone.”
Now the challenge will be for the Jets rookies to recover quickly to face an Oilers team who last played Saturday night.
"Yeah, we've got five players coming in, so we've got some fresh legs there but there's going to be some tired bodies for sure," said head coach Mark Morrison.
"Back-to-back at the very beginning of the season for these guys, first couple of games, it's tough. We're going to have to have short shifts and play smart hockey."
Now while that might sound easy to you and me, try telling that to young prospects.
"It's really hard to get across especially with this group because this tournament they want to showcase themselves. That's what it's for," said Morrison.
"To showcase yourself you have to be on the ice, so they want to try to extend it. I think for the most part they understand that it's a long game and they got to get into it slowly."
Here is the lineup for the game against Edmonton:
He. Julien. Levis
Barlow. Yager. Chibrikov
Golder. Zhilkin. King
Torgersson. Nikkanen. Liwiski
Anhorn. Mayo
Zloty. Barteaux
Sward. Kuzmin
Milic
For the second straight game, Brayden Yager will centre Colby Barlow and Nikita Chibrikov. Morrison liked some things that he saw from the trio yesterday.
"It's hard for them because there is not a lot of time to develop chemistry, but I thought they did well," said Morrison.
"They made some plays. I really liked the power plays, I thought they moved the puck really well, created. There's some skill but it's such a short tournament that it’s really hard to find chemistry with guys. It's not just three good players put together, doesn't always work that way."
