WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Jets have been trying to find consistency.
Just look at their last four games.
A 3-0 shutout win in Seattle was followed by a 5-0 loss in Vancouver. Then, another 3-0 shutout victory over Washington was followed up with last night’s 4-2 setback at the hands of Nashville.
The Jets practiced this afternoon at Canada Life Centre and head coach Rick Bowness said the team took a step forward to try to solve their recent issues.
“It starts with addressing it, which we did this morning again,” said Bowness.
“Listen, again, it's a good group. They care a lot. They're not happy when they don't play well like they did last night. So regardless of the outcome, I expect a full response tomorrow, for sure."
Bowness said pretty much the same thing after the loss to the Canucks and indeed the Jets did respond with a dominant performance start to finish against Washington. Dylan Samberg also felt today’s practice was a step in the right direction when it came to putting the Nashville loss behind them.
“Just focus on the things that we can control. Try and put that one (Wednesday’s loss) out of the way and forget about it,” said Samberg.
“Just focus on Anaheim coming in here and having a good one final last (home) game before we go on a nice long road trip.”
Gabe Vilardi (upper body), Mark Scheifele (illness) and Vladislav Namestnikov (lower body) didn’t practice on Thursday. Vilardi will not play Friday, Scheifele is feeling better, and the hope is he can take part and Namestnikov should recover from blocking a shot against Nashville enough to be in the lineup against the Ducks.
The Jets clearly missed their leading scorer against Nashville.
“When he's not there, that's when you need your other players to not try to replace him but to make sure that they're bringing the best version of themselves. When Mark's not there and we don't get the best version of the other players, then it looks like it did last night,” said Bowness.
So, you don't replace Mark but again, the focus has to go on the rest of the players to be the best version of themselves, much like we talked about earlier when we lost KC (Kyle Connor), and we lost guys. It just didn't happen last night."
