WINNIPEG – The Jets return home for a Saturday afternoon matchup with the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes. Winnipeg is coming off a 4-3 overtime loss in Chicago on Thursday night and have now collected a point in six of seven games to open the season.<\/p>\n
The Jets are ready for one of their toughest challenges early on this season knowing that they have to be prepared right from the time the puck drops.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019ve been seeing it in our first six games here and we\u2019re going to see it again (on Saturday) here,\u201d said head coach Scott Arniel.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s knowing that the pressure is coming and making sure that we\u2019re clean with our exits and fast with our exits. It took us a period against Minnesota and (Thursday) night, it took us a little bit \u2013 after all of the penalties \u2013 to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slow starts have been hurting the Jets their last two games as Arniel mentioned, they were the better team over the final 40 minutes against the Wild and Blackhawks.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we have a better start. I think this team forces you to play a certain way and be ready, otherwise it can get out of hand pretty fast,\u201d said Dylan DeMelo.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, yeah, we should be ready to go tomorrow and looking forward to a tough test against the defending champs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The penalty kill has gotten off to a strong start, despite allowing a goal in the first period in Chicago. It ranks ninth in the NHL, while opposing power plays have managed just two goals through the first six games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still don’t think we have it nailed down yet, to be honest,\u201d said DeMelo.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd obviously, the results have been there, which is great, but I still think there’s another level we can get to with it. I think guys have taken a lot of pride in that. A lot of guys just play PK, not a lot of power play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winnipeg was shorthanded four times on Thursday, but overall, the Jets have done a good job of staying out of the penalty box. They\u2019ve been shorthanded just 17 times this season, the fewest in the\u00a0NHL. Their 2.43 times shorthanded per game is also tied for the lowest mark in the league, while their 53 penalty minutes rank third-lowest (through Oct. 15).<\/p>\n
For the second straight game, the Jets got some scoring from outside their top line, with Alex Iafallo finding the back of the net. There are some encouraging signs from the second line, too, as Viggo Bj\u00f6rck gets set to play his seventh NHL game this afternoon. He\u2019s starting to build some chemistry with Gabe Vilardi, and that connection looks to be getting better with each game.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, (Thursday), that was crazy. Nino had seven shots, Gabe had four or whatever it was. They had looks. If they can spend that much time in that offensive zone, that\u2019s the positive,\u201d said Arniel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt throws me back to two years ago, when it was Vladdy (Namestnikov), (Nikolaj) Ehlers and (Cole) Perfetti. The same type of things. (After) 10 games, they weren\u2019t getting a sniff and then all of a sudden … .But they were spending a lot of time in the opposition end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Puck drop is scheduled for 2:30 PM CT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINNIPEG – The Jets return home for a Saturday afternoon matchup with the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Carolina…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":936583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-936582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}