CHICAGO – Connor Hellebuyck might have summed up the mood around the Winnipeg Jets at Friday’s practice the best.
Just one day after snapping a season-long four-game losing skid with a 3-2 overtime win in Buffalo, Hellebuyck – who stopped 28 of 30 in the game – gave this description of the group.
“It’s always great winning in this league,” he said. “The morale, you just have more fun - around the rink, at the hotel, the travel day, it becomes less of a grind when you’re winning.”
Hard to argue with that.
The Jets (19-8-0) did a lot of winning at the start of the season, running to a National Hockey League historical best 15-1-0 start. Injuries and a grind of a road schedule have made it difficult to keep up that pace – as well as some high-quality competition along the way – but it could be easy to forget that Winnipeg was 1:04 away from dropping their second game of the season.
Mark Scheifele’s heroics – the game-tying goal and later, the overtime winner – against the Chicago Blackhawks way back on October 11 are just another chapter in the eight-game winning streak the Jets had to start the season.
Today in Chicago, it’s the rematch between the two teams. It’ll also be the first game for Chicago under interim head coach Anders Sorensen, who was moved into that position after the Blackhawks (8-16-2) relieved former coach, Luke Richardson, of his duties on Thursday.
“Everybody is going to come out there and work really hard, I think we saw that from St. Louis the other day,” said Cole Perfetti, referencing Winnipeg’s 4-1 loss to St. Louis on Tuesday, just four games into Jim Montgomery’s tenure as their head coach.
“When you get that coaching change, there’s a little bit of extra desperation,” Perfetti said. “Everyone kind of has a fresh start, so you have to earn what you get. I think we’re going to see that again (on Saturday).”
Winnipeg will be looking to win both games on this short two-game road trip after a physical victory in Buffalo. This weekend holds the team’s second set of back-to-back games, with the Jets hosting the Columbus Blue Jackets at Canada Life Centre on Sunday.
It also puts the finishing touches on a stretch that saw Winnipeg play two home games since November 10.
“We know what the schedule has been like, it’s been tough sledding,” said Perfetti, who played a career high 19:05 in Buffalo on Thursday. “We had our legs and played better (on Thursday). We got a quick skate in, got our legs going and then an afternoon game (on Saturday), heading into a back-to-back. It’s going to be important to recover and make sure that our legs are there.”
Even though the skate was quick, there was still a method to it. When playing nearly every other day, practice time is hard to come by.
“There are a couple details that we’ve talked about over the last week or so that we wanted to clean up,” said assistant coach Dean Chynoweth. “Today was a short practice, just three drills, but one of those drills was focused on those areas that we need to get better at.”
There were no changes to the Jets line rushes at practice on Friday. With no morning skate on Saturday ahead of the afternoon face-off at United Center, warm-up will be the best indication of whether the Jets will change their line-up in any way.
The rushes at practice looked like this:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Namestnikov-Lambert-Perfetti
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Iafallo
Gustafsson
Morrissey-Pionk
Fleury-DeMelo
Stanley-Heinola
Coghlan-Miller
Chicago has lost four games in a row and have been outscored 17-8 along the way. The 63 goals they’ve scored are the third fewest in the National Hockey League, but even dating back to last season, every match-up between the Jets and Blackhawks was close.
Winnipeg went 3-0-1 against Chicago – with the lone loss coming in overtime at United Center – with the Jets outscoring the Blackhawks 9-6. During that season series, Winnipeg’s power play was just 7.1 percent.
The power play was a big part of Thursday’s win in Buffalo, with Kyle Connor’s five-on-three marker tying the game in the first period. It was also the first goal the Jets had scored on the man advantage since Perfetti hopped onto the unit that includes Scheifele, Connor, Josh Morrissey, and Gabriel Vilardi due to the injury to Nikolaj Ehlers.
“To be able to get on there is a lot of fun,” said Perfetti. “We had a lot of really good looks (against the Sabres). Scheif found me backdoor, their guy made a good save on me. KC had a few good shots, so we had some good looks and some good looks on the five-on-four as well. It was great that we cashed in on one.”
Puck drop against the Blackhawks is set for 3 pm CT.
