GAMEDAY: Wild at Jets

WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Jets open an important home and home series with the Minnesota Wild today at Canada Life Centre at 1 pm CT.

It is the first meeting of the season between the two Central Division rivals. Both teams are playing some of their best hockey of the season as the Jets are 7-1-2 in their last ten and the Wild are 7-3-0. 

"Listen, they're playing very well and they're scoring a lot of goals, too. They have a lot of skill up front and they're scoring. What are they, 11 and 3 since John took over? So they're playing really, really well. They're scoring goals," said Rick Bowness on Friday.

"Their structure is really good. At once point they were what, three or four games below .500, now they're above .500 and they're chasing us. We know how they're looking at this weekend -- they're trying to close their gap with us -- and we're looking at it to try to extend the lead on them."

PROJECTED LINEUP

It doesn't look like there will be any changes to the lineup from Wednesday night. Bowness said David Gustafsson will not play this weekend. The Jets head coach did not announce his starting goaltender.

The Jets power play has been up and down in terms of consistency this season but will be going up against one of the worst penalty kills in the league today. The Wild PK is ranked 31st in the NHL but Bowness is more concerned about how his team is playing.

"Yeah, again we keep the focus on our team. How we want our power play to look. Whether they're the best or the worst, those things. They're game by game. So they might be the worst but they might have done a great job the last couple of games and that's all that matters: what they're doing now," said Bowness.

"It doesn't matter what happened in October or November, it's what's going on now. And it's the same thing with our power play: it's been struggling a little bit. It looked good there for a couple of games. We didn't have a good game in Chicago so we're just keeping the focus on what we need from our power play. We know what's wrong with our power play and we're going to keep harping on it."

The Jets and Wild are have split the past six meetings. The home team has won four of the six games.