GAMEDAY: Golden Knights at Jets

WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Jets beat the Boston Bruins 8-1 on Tuesday night. The Jets are 1-1-0 so far on this homestand, suffering their lone loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1 on Sunday evening. The Vegas Golden Knights will visit Canada Life Centre on Thursday night as the Jets look to build off Tuesday’s victory.

Jets head coach Scott Arniel is hoping to see the same type of effort against the Golden Knights as he did on Tuesday.

“The big thing for me was practising yesterday. Something that we haven't been able to do a whole lot. We got to get two or three drills in there that we felt would clean up some areas but also help us today against Vegas,” said Arniel.

“You know what, you can't stress enough, the players are actually excited to get out there and get their touches, get practising and doing some of the things they haven't been able to do.”

Beating Vegas is something the Jets have been struggling to do as of late, they lost 4-3 at T-Mobile Arena last month. One thing that stood out in that loss was the chances Winnipeg gave up off the rush and that’s what Arniel wants to see cleaned up tonight.

“They’re a good rush team. We gave up seven rush chances against, three of them were goals in a game where I thought we played one of our best games, in Vegas. 3-3 and we gave up the late one with five minutes to go off the rush,” said Arniel.

“I just think the D gap through the neutral zone, our forward recognition if it’s numbers, what that entry may be. One thing about Vegas is their D are always coming. They like to delay, they like to find the late people. It’s all about our sort-outs as we get into our end of the rink. It would be nice if we can kind of shut those off before the blue-line.”

While the Jets may have lost that game against Vegas, they also liked a lot of what they did.

“It’s been a while now. Honestly, it’s been such a busy schedule that honestly, they all kind of blend together,” said Morgan Barron.

“We talked about it in that stretch we had a lot of games where it was a tie game going into the third period and ultimately, we just weren’t able to find a way to come up with a win. Even during that stretch when we weren’t playing our best hockey, it’s right there. It’s just a matter of kind of bearing down at the right times.”

Jets defenceman Neal Pionk would like to see a lot of the things they did well against the Bruins come back to the performance tonight.

“Yeah, it’s probably something that we haven't seen in a few games before that,” said Pionk.

“Just some confidence, some goals going in, maybe some goals going in that shouldn't have and it just gives the whole group some confidence.”