GAMEDAY: Predators at Jets

WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Jets have opened their eight-game homestand with two losses in a row. The Jets fell to the Anaheim Ducks 4-3 in overtime on Thursday and 4-2 against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday. They will look to rebound on Tuesday night when the Nashville Predators come to town for their third meeting this season and their second meeting in the past nine days.

"For their road trip, obviously, they won in Vancouver and in Calgary recently," said Scott Arniel.

"Now they have the top PK in the league and there's a lot of things there that you see, a little bit like last year, where they got off to a slow start and got rolling again. So they've been good in their last 10."

Something that might help the Jets end their three game winless slide is having a couple days away from the rink. Following their loss to Detroit on Saturday, the players had Sunday and Monday off to recharge the batteries.

"I think it was nice to step away. Being at home, you get to spend some time at home. We’re kind of stuck in a little bit of a losing streak here, but you look at the games as a whole, I think the Anaheim one we had chances, the Detroit game we had chances to win that game, too," said Adam Lowry.

"I don’t think the losses are lack of effort or anything like that. It’s finding that extra goal, trying to find another way to deny that extra chance that they’re getting. It allows us to come back to the rink today refreshed for another Central Division opponent."

Obviously, when you have lost three games in a row, there are things that need to improve.

"You look at the analytics of the last Anaheim, Detroit game, we blew them out of the water. We hit posts. We didn't score at the times that we needed to. There was a lot of good things that happened. The Colorado game was its own little entity in the sense of all the travel and three in four," said Arniel.

"At the end of the day, if I'm nit-picking, probably off the rush we've got to make sure against these teams that transition well, that we do a good job that way. That's one thing Nashville will do. They'll try to get off and run."

The Jets played with five defencemen on Saturday after Colin Miller was hit in the throat with a puck. Miller will be out of the lineup for at least the next two weeks with a fractured larynx. So, that means another opportunity for Dylan Coghlan who has played in three games with Winnipeg this season and he will skate with Ville Heinola on the Jets third defence pairing. Coghlan last played back-to-back games against Nashville and Colorado at the end of 2024.

"I feel like I was just kind of getting going. But that's just the way it works. And in this league, there's lots of good players, and guys need to rotate in and stay fresh. So yeah, I'm ready for it," said Coghlan.

"And, yeah, just kind of building off of how I left off in Colorado. And I felt like my game was good, and playing with the puck and confident skating, yeah, just overall felt really good."

STAT(S) OF THE DAY: Dylan DeMelo has maintained a +18 rating this season to lead the team. His +18 is tied for the 12th-highest in the league and tied for the fifth-best among defencemen. It’s tied for the fourth-highest in franchise history through the first 41 games played.