Fehr feels the fans’ love

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/03/2012 (5181 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It took until Game 70, but Winkler’s Eric Fehr finally got to feel the real love from the MTS Centre fans.

Fehr scored his second goal of the season, but first at home, Wednesday night to help the Jets blitz the Dallas Stars 5-2.

Fehr, coming off seven straight healthy scratches, was inserted into the lineup for injured Chris Thorburn and took Thorburn’s place on the GST line with Tanner Glass and Jim Slater.

With his team ahead 2-0 early in the second period, Fehr blocked a shot and then stole the puck from Dallas defenceman Adam Pardy at the Winnipeg blueline.

He dashed up the right wing and let fly a 35-foot blast that beat Dallas goalie Richard Bachman high to the short side at 8:28. His goal proved to be the game-winner.

Fehr’s only other goal this season came Jan. 10 in Boston. He missed the first six weeks of the season rehabilitating a shoulder injury.

Team launching official mobile app

True North and MTS announced Wednesday they’ll be launching the official Winnipeg Jets mobile app for Apple, BlackBerry and Android.

The app will include live scores, player bios, NHL and Jets stats, photos and other content from jets.nhl.com and Jets TV.

The app is free and available from Apple’s iTunes store, RIM’s App World and Google’s Android Marketplace.

Hainsey OK with rule tweaks

Potential rule changes coming to the NHL will not be a bad thing but even without them, a defenceman’s job is still not as difficult as it was some years ago.

The league’s GMs have moved down a road to a hybrid icing call with their meeting this week, and they may experiment with a “Bowman” line at the top of the circles to revise the two-line-pass rule with an experiment in the AHL next season.

Jets defenceman Ron Hainsey said neither idea is bad.

“For me personally, I think there’s a balancing act here,” Hainsey said Wednesday.

“The league, the GMs, want to put a good game out there. A lot of our fans enjoy certain things about our game. A large percentage enjoy fighting. A large percentage enjoy the way it’s played now, which is a lot of speed and there’s no doubt it’s easier to play for a defenceman now.

“There is just ripping it up (the ice) now as long as it’s an attempted pass. That’s changed since when I first started, when that was a two-line pass.

“It’s easier to move the puck up into the other team’s zone. At the same time, it’s easier for them to come right back down to your end. That creates what they’re talking about, the pinball effect that they’re talking about.”

Hainsey said he’s in favour of minor tweaks such as this that could reduce injury.

“I think every GM wants to have all their players playing at all times if they could, but that’s not realistic,” he said.

“The icing thing, maybe they can take a little risk out for their defenceman, not having to go all the way to the boards. I think that’s why that’s gained some momentum, to make it a little bit safer.”

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Stu Barnes, Dallas’s hockey operations consultant, was at the game in Winnipeg Wednesday night. He was Winnipeg’s first overall pick in the 1989 draft. The 109th player in that draft, also taken by the Jets, was Dan Bylsma, now the current coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins… With no identifiable Dallas superstar to boo on Wednesday, Jets fans needed a period and a half to start with Stars’ Mike Ribeiro, because he showered Winnipeg goalie Ondrej Pavelec with snow.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca