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 way Adam Lowry sees it, energy won’t be a problem for the Jets tonight, even at the end of a trip of this length.
“There’s a sense of we need to get back on the right track, get back to playing how we know we’re capable of playing, structurally and playing with pace, playing fast,” said Lowry after the morning skate. “It’s certainly been a long time on the road but with the way the games have gone and how tight it seems like the standings are, it’s another critical game for us.”
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.”
Morgan Barron and Cole Koepke participated in the morning skate in regular jerseys, but won’t make their return tonight based on how the line rushes were configured at morning skate:
