The Wild sit eight points back of the Jets in the standings with both teams having played 33 games in 2023-24. This will be the first meeting between these two since their epic battle back in April which turned out to be a 3-1 win for the Jets in St. Paul and that clinched Winnipeg a playoff berth.
The game had everything. Goals, big saves and tons of emotion. This is arguably the best rivalry the Jets have right now.
“Obviously, them being this close to us, just across the border I think there's a natural rivalry there,” said Scheifele.
“Got some tough games, some tight games, some heated games so we just have to be ready for a good fought game tomorrow and get ready for it.”
Winnipeg is coming off a game that they deserved a much better fate in. The 2-1 loss to Chicago is not something they are going to rush back to the drawing board about. They heavily outplayed the Blackhawks but ran into a hot goaltender in Petr Mrazek on Wednesday night.
The Jets have done a great job this year with sticking to their systems despite the opponent and the score and they will have to continue to do that this weekend.
“We talked about it today, it’s still a work in progress. We’re not going to have a whole lot of practice time coming up here. That’s the importance of watching video, communicating with your teammates. Really locking it down,” said Adam Lowry.
“It’s not one of those things where we feel that we like where it is, and we’ll stop working on it. It’s one of those things in practice, even today, we’ll keep working on it, that 5-on-5 in-zone, the transition, the back pressure. All the things that have gotten us to this point in the season so that we can maintain that high level.”