9:00 pm CT – TV: Sportsnet; Radio: 680 CJOB/Power 97
CALGARY – A long, gruelling road trip through the majority of the Pacific Division comes to an end tonight for the Winnipeg Jets.
They’ll take on the Calgary Flames (5-12-2) tonight at Scotiabank Saddledome with a chance to sweep the season series and, more importantly, end the six-game, 13-day trek on a winning note.
“It’s no secret the trip hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to. We’ve let a few games slip away,” said Luke Schenn. “The reality of the schedule right now is you don’t have a lot of time to dwell on things. You have to correct things on the fly and learn from it.”
The Jets (10-7-0) have lost four of five games on the trip and spent the majority of Friday’s practice in Calgary focused on the details they felt cost them against Seattle on Thursday.
At five-on-five, Natural Stat Trick shows that Winnipeg gave up nine high-danger scoring chances in the 5-3 loss to the Kraken, and gave up three goals.
Head coach Scott Arniel ran his team through some defensive zone coverage work with the primary goal of having players execute the plays they need to under pressure.
“The coverage side, that’s the mental side of just recognizing where your position is,” said Arniel. “We’ve been doing it here (for a few years) and for the guys who haven’t been here, for (17 games), through training camp as well, we’ve been going over it through video. And for the guys who were here last year, they know what they’re supposed to do. I don’t even have to tell them, but we did. We looked at it. These are simple things to fix and when we do that – and we only give up nine chances in a game, we should win a hockey game.”
That’s what could be the frustrating part for the Jets. The back-to-back William Jennings trophy winners are used to making those plays. Winnipeg was 7-0-0 this season when going into the third period with a lead, but the Kraken turned a 3-2 Jets advantage into a 5-3 defeat.
“We talk about it a lot, it’s just a matter of going out there and executing,” said Gustav Nyquist. “For the most part this season we’ve struggled with the consistency of doing it for a few full games in a row. It’s something we’re still looking for and working toward. Hopefully we can get there soon.”
The Jets will hold a morning skate, so stay tuned for line-up information as it comes available. The line rushes in Friday’s skate looked like this:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Namestnikov-Toews-Perfetti
Niederreiter-Lowry-Iafallo
Pearson-Ford-Nyquist
Barron, Koepke, Lambert, Chibrikov
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Stanley-Schenn
Miller
The Flames are coming off a 2-0 win over San Jose on Thursday. Calgary outshot the Sharks 13-1 in the opening 20 minutes, and 27-7 overall through the first two periods.
Blake Coleman scored his team-leading seventh of the season, which ended up as the eventual game-winner, Samuel Honzek added an empty netter with five seconds left in regulation.
Winnipeg has outscored Calgary 7-4 in the season series so far, and will rely on the veteran group to fight through the frustration to find a win to close out the trip.
“They can push themselves sometimes when I’m not in the room,” said Arniel. “You lean on your leadership at these times. We’re 1-4 on this road trip. We’ve been out here for two weeks on the road and we need to finish it off on a good note.”
After all, the Central Division doesn’t wait for anyone.
“We’re in the toughest division in the league,” said Arniel. “We want to stay in the pack here. We can’t wait until December or January and decide it’s time to turn it on. It’s too hard of a league. We need to start grabbing our points right now.”
Puck drop is set for 9 pm CT.
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