Jets better start flying before it’s too late

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/01/2012 (5010 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHEN you’re in 10th place, it’s never too early for some urgency.

That’s what you’re hearing this week from the Winnipeg Jets, who have lost four of their last five heading for today’s MTS Centre matinee (2 p.m., CBC, TSN 1290) against an NHL Eastern Conference rival, the New Jersey Devils.

“There’s no easy way through this adversity thing,” Jets head coach Claude Noel said Friday. “We’ve come to a fork in the road here — we have to decide which way we’re going to go.”

At 20-18-5, for 45 points, the Jets have important opponents straight ahead of them, the sixth-place Devils today and Tuesday sandwiched around a Monday game at fifth-place Ottawa.

“You can’t be stringing together bad efforts,” defenceman Mark Stuart said. “If you lose three, four, five, then you screw yourself.”

The Jets are coming off two difficult nights against elite teams, losses in Boston and at home Thursday against San Jose.

“I think the players care,” Noel said. “They’re finding this is not an easy time. You have some tough opponents that can really frustrate you.

“They’re not a happy group. We’ve seen both sides of the fence here in the last three weeks.

“I think the players and staff recognize which side of the fence we’d rather be on. There’s a lot more joy in winning than there is in losing.”

He said there’s one job for his players today.

“What impact can you have on the game as a player — that’s really what you have to focus on,” Noel said.

Jets defenceman Johnny Oduya, the hero in the team’s last win, an overtime victory last Saturday in Buffalo, expressed some concern that too much bad may have been said about losing to Boston and San Jose.

“You guys watch the game but we in here sometimes feel not the same as you,” Oduya said. “It could be both good and bad.

“Sometimes the media could rip you apart when you know you actually played your heart out or played the way you wanted but you didn’t win. It could go either way.

“The last couple, three, four games, it’s been a little bit too much up and down at times. At times we do things the way we want and at times we don’t. We don’t really have that push for 60 minutes that we want.

“We’re not putting ourselves down just because of a tough stretch. This is more about trying to get back that feeling.”

That feeling was missing on Thursday. In particular because the home team didn’t score first to get its fans hyped and engaged.

“There’s a reason why we’re really good at home,” Oduya said. “We feed off the enthusiasm and the fire in the building for sure.

“We compare that to playing last year, a lot of times there were not that many people in the rink. The excitement level was pretty low.

“There are a lot of games in the NHL, 41 at home and every night is not going to be the sharpest night for your team and if you get that little push, it might help you win games. In the long run, over that span of the season, I think you can pick up a lot of points just by the excitement of the fans.”

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Jets centre Bryan Little believes the same thing, but also that his team must deal better with nights on which it doesn’t strike first.

“I think (scoring first) matters,” Little said. “Scoring the first goal is a huge momentum boost for your team, especially at home. That first one, it feels like you just get on a roll.

“It is big, but you won’t score first every game. Good teams know how to come back and get into the game if they don’t score first. That’s something we have to get better at.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca