GAMEDAY: Penguins at Jets

\WINNIPEG - \The Winnipeg Jets will open a two-game homestand tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins at 6 CT.

The Jets are trying to end a season high five game winless streak. Something the team is hoping for is a solid first period, which they did not have in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia.

"You always want to get off to a good start even in that Pittsburgh game. You know, we had some chances early that just didn't quite go," said Mark Scheifele.

"You know, whether they blocked it or gotta stick on it or whatever. So it's just a matter of making sure we execute on those plays, passes on the tape and go from there."

Scheifele will have Nikolaj Ehlers along with Kyle Connor on his wings tonight, which is the linemates he had to close out the game in Philadelphia. The trio generated four scoring chances together and Connor ended up with the only goal of the game, his team leading 19th of the campaign.

“That line looked really good when we got them together finally. Listen, I know that Nik and Gabe (Vilardi) and Mark have outstanding analytics as well, but the ripple effect of doing that means that I’ve got to move Cole to right wing, which I’m trying to avoid doing," said Rick Bowness.

"We may end up going back to Nik and Mark and Gabe, because of their analytics. They had a really good stretch." 

Per NHL Stats, Connor (228-226—454 in 499 GP) will play in his 500th career game. He will become one of only two players in Jets/Thrashers history with at least 200 career goals with the franchise through the milestone contest (also Ilya Kovalchuk: 265-236—501 in 500 GP).

There will be a different look on the power play as well, the Jets second unit will have Vlad Namestnikov, Cole Perfetti, Nino Niederreiter, Ehlers and Neal Pionk. Bowness said that they will have Namestnikov in the bumper position and they need to get the Russian forward more minutes. Pionk was asked about what changes with Ehlers on the left wall.

"We've played there before. We were kind of staples of that unit for a couple of years. I think the mentality is for Fly (Ehlers) to go downhill like that and shoot on the left side and if he can't shoot, he slides it up to me and if I can't shoot, I slide it over to Fetts (Perfetti)," said Pionk.

"That's kind of the mentality that we have, that we're all shoot-first, pass second."

Despite the Jets struggles, they begin the day three points behind the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars in the Central, but have two games in-hand on Dallas and three games in-hand on Colorado. The Jets are second in the Central Division with a .663 points percentage.