Practice Notebook - Apr. 4, 2023

WINNIPEG -Head coach Rick Bowness isn't hiding from the importance of the clash between his Winnipeg Jets and the Calgary Flames, set for Wednesday night at Canada Life Centre - a night that
will also serve as Pride Night.
"Tomorrow night is probably going to be like a Game 7 for both teams," Bowness said following the 35-minute practice on Tuesday. "Win or lose, you're not eliminated, for sure. There's still three for them, four for us after. But that's the mentality both teams will probably have going into the game."
Heading into action on Tuesday night, the Jets hold a two-point lead over the Flames for the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference, but that could change by the time the puck drops on Wednesday.
Calgary hosts Chicago - the last place team in the Central Division - on Tuesday night, and with a win, the Flames would pull even with Winnipeg in points. The Jets hold the tie-breaker, but they'd certainly prefer if that didn't need to come into play.

"It's as close to a must-win as you'll get in the regular season. It's a huge game," said Adam Lowry. "The last two games, the way we've gotten off to fast starts it's going to be important we jump on them. They play tonight. Hopefully we can have some of the same success we've had in the first period the last couple games."
Those starts Lowry references from 6-2 and 6-1 wins, over Detroit and New Jersey respectively, have seen the Jets hold leads of 3-0 and 2-0 after the opening 20 minutes. They've done a quality job of jumping on opponents playing on back-to-back nights, something that would be critical on Wednesday.
Perhaps just as important is that the offensive bounces and finish that seemed to elude the Jets on the road trip through California have turned in their favour.

"We knew it was in this room and we knew it was a lot closer than it was further away," said Dylan DeMelo. "We just stayed together. Obviously we still have a lot of work to do. Those were two good wins and it's nice to see guys score that weren't scoring before. We're going to need that tomorrow and we're going to need that the rest of the way."
It's expected that there will only be one tweak to the Jets line-up on Wednesday, as Saku Maenalanen will draw back into the line-up after sitting out the last two games. Karson Kuhlman played 11:13 and 9:19 in the last two games, but Bowness wants Maenalanen back in for penalty kill reasons.
"He's been one of our top four penalty killers all year," said Bowness. "(Mason Appleton) and (Lowry), then he goes back with Kevin. The penalty kill has been victimized by a couple of fluky goals, but we've been giving up more than we had all year."

The rest of the lines that gave the Jets so much success the last two games stayed in-tact:
Connor-Scheifele-Dubois
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Wheeler
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Stenlund-Maenalanen
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt
The Jets were always confident in themselves, but the fact the goals are now going in - paired with two wins - have certainly helped.
"We've kind of started to find our groove again. It took a long time to get that bit of swagger back," Lowry said. "It's nice to see contributions up and down the lineup. That's going to be important going forward. In these tight games, if you can get some secondary scoring, you can get some guys chipping in from the back end, it takes a lot weight off the top-six guys and usually that's the difference in a game."
What's also made a difference, according to players in postgame interviews, has been the crowd.
Whether it's a cheer for a blocked shot, a back check, or a successful penalty kill, the volume in the building has translated seemingly right into the legs of the Jets.

They plan to play the same way on Wednesday, and hopefully get the same reaction.
"I've always said, even when I was an away team coming in here, it was always a very hard building to play in," said DeMelo. "It's a very passionate fan group and we love having them. We're looking forward for them to be rowdy tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a fantastic game."
Nothing beats this time of year.
"These are the big ones and it's certainly an exciting time as a player," said Morrissey. "I feel like we have that energy in the locker room now the way we're playing and sort of that mojo as a team that I think we had for a lot of the season. So it's a fun time of the year to play important games."