Huge weekend upcoming for Jets

WINNIPEG – For over an hour today, the Winnipeg Jets practiced at Canada Life Centre. The skate may have gone a little longer than normal since the team won’t have many chances to practice over the next couple of weeks due to the two matinee games this weekend and going on another long road trip.

But let’s not look too far ahead here. In front of the Jets right now is a crucial home and home series with the surging Minnesota Wild starting with tomorrow afternoon’s tilt here in Winnipeg.

“Yeah, for sure. They have a good team over there, we have to be prepared for everything,” said Mark Scheifele.

“Obviously since the coaching change, they've taken it to heart and have really been rolling. So, we have to be ready for a hungry team in Minnesota and we've got to bring our best.”

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.”

On top of that, the Jets are hoping to find some consistency from the power play.

“We always look at power play and regardless of the scores, you want your power play to gain momentum, get some chances, give you some offensive momentum. They didn’t do that in Chicago,” said Rick Bowness.

“Again, you’re not going to score every time on your power play, but you have to generate some offence, you have to generate some shots. We didn’t do any of those (things) in Chicago. You get late in the game, with three minutes to go and you get a power play and then we do nothing with it, those are the things that we are working on straightening out.”

INJURY UPDATES

David Gustafsson (lower body) who missed Wednesday’s game in Chicago, will not play this weekend against the Wild.

Both Ville Heinola (lower body) and Rasmus Kupari (upper body) skated with non-contact jerseys on this morning. Heiniola’s return date has not been announced while Kupari has a chance at playing sometime during the team’s next road trip through California and Arizona January 4-7.