DENVER – Two teams tied with 104 points in the Central Division standings will face off on Saturday when the Winnipeg Jets take on the Colorado Avalanche.
It’s the last stop on a four-game road trip for the Jets, who have rattled off five straight wins overall, punctuated by a 3-0 shutout victory over the Central leading Dallas Stars on Thursday.
Both the Jets and the Avalanche are five points back of Dallas. Mathematically, both teams can still catch the Stars, but even if they don’t, there is a lot to play for as the higher seeded team between Winnipeg and Colorado would have home-ice advantage if the two meet in the postseason.
“Every Central Division game we play this year, whether it’s game 10 or game 80, is a big one,” said Jets defenceman Brenden Dillon. “I think at this point in the season we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. We know how good Colorado is. We have more than enough respect for them as a team and how well they’ve played all season. Much like the Dallas game, we’re really going to see how good of a team we are.”
The Jets have won both meetings with Colorado this season by scores of 4-2 and 6-2, but it would take more than a couple flips of the calendar to reach the dates those games were played (December 7 and 16, respectively).
Both teams have changed a lot since then.
Winnipeg has brought in Sean Monahan and Tyler Toffoli, while Colorado has inserted Casey Mittelstadt, Brandon Duhaime, Yakov Trenin, and Sean Walker.
Overall, Colorado is 5-4-1 in their last 10 games, but the last two have been polar opposites. They gave up seven goals in a 7-4 loss to Dallas on Sunday before dominating the Minnesota Wild 5-2 two nights later.
“That’s the type of game we’re going to see tomorrow,” said head coach Rick Bowness, referencing the win over Minnesota where Nathan MacKinnon had a hat trick to hit the 50-goal mark for the first time in his career.
“Their elite players will be trying to take over the game much like they did against Minnesota,” Bowness said. “It’s up to us to slow them up as much as we can and play our game.”
Despite all the sizing up that will likely occur on the ice when the two teams meet, it’s still only game 80 of the regular season. Teams heading to the playoffs are fine-tuning their game and trying to reach the level of consistency required to go on a long run.
The focus for the Jets is bringing the same attention to detail to the ice on Saturday that helped them beat the Stars for the first time two nights ago.
“We knew that Dallas is one of the top if not the top team in the league at their structure and their neutral zone,” said Dillon. “That was one of our, if not our most complete game of the year which is nice to have that confidence at this time of the year. Pressure (on the puck) was a big part of it, I think our attention to detail and understanding that they’re a good team, they’re not going to give you much, and we took advantage of when we got our bounces.”
With the early puck drop of 3 pm CT at Ball Arena, the Jets won’t hold a morning skate ahead of the game.
Rick Bowness did reveal that Connor Hellebuyck – who made 45 saves in Winnipeg’s 4-3 overtime victory in Nashville on Tuesday – will get the call in goal. Laurent Brossoit, who turned away 24 shots in Dallas for his third shutout of the season, stayed off the ice on Friday while Hellebuyck joined his teammates for a 30-minute skate.
Also staying off the ice on Friday were Adam Lowry, Mason Appleton, Sean Monahan, Neal Pionk, and Dillon.
The expectation is that the Jets will ice the same line-up as in Dallas, but Bowness said there will be a couple extra players taking warm-up as a precaution.
In addition, Nino Niederreiter will miss a fifth straight game as he continues to recover from a cut he suffered against the Los Angeles Kings.
“At this point we’re hoping and planning that he’ll be playing Tuesday. We’ll give him a good skate today, put him on the ice on Monday, and we’ll see where we are,” said Bowness. “When you have stitches where he has them, it just gives him time to heal better. We’re not going to put him out there unless he’s 100 percent. He’s not 100 percent, so we need those extra days.”
David Gustafsson, who scored a goal on his 24th birthday and played a career high 14:13 as the cherry on top, will remain on the left wing – Niederreiter’s usual spot – in the game against Colorado.
“He’s a good fit for that line because that’s how they play. Give him credit,” said Bowness. “He hasn’t played much but he’s been working very hard, the coaches have been pushing him, and he’s responded. His number was called and he was ready to go.”
As a group, the Jets also want to be ready to go on Saturday, as they try to extend their win streak to six, but also put together consecutive statement victories against the other top teams in the Central Division.
“Those are the measuring stick games for us where we want to see where we’re at,” Dillon said. “Hopefully we can continue to take the confidence of beating one of the best teams in their building. Especially Nashville too, another solid building where maybe we didn’t play our best, but we were able to find a way to win.”
