Jets looking for better start against Rangers

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This article was published 13/10/2015 (3873 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK – Every hockey season means a new look, a new set of personalities and a new approach for every team. But Paul Maurice knows enough about his Winnipeg Jets to say this about the team’s so-so first periods in two of their first three games of 2015-16:

“For me it’s still too early in the season to call it a trend,” said Maurice this morning as the Jets held an optional skate at Madison Square Garden. “I thought the Boston and Islander games were similar with penalty trouble… (Monday) there was almost seven minutes of penalty kill in the first period and you’re not going to look good in that. I liked our start in New Jersey — they came ready to play and so did we.

“That preparation is something a team has to find, how it walks out of the locker room, where it’s at in terms of its intensity level. We’ll find it.”

The Jets wrap up their four-game, season-opening road trip tonight at MSG against the unbeaten (3-0) New York Rangers (6 p.m.; TSN3/TSN 1290). And one of the keys, as Maurice alluded to, is staying out of the penalty box early in order to find some sort of flow. The Jets gave the Bruins two man advantages in the first period in their opener and took five minor penalties in the first period of Monday’s 4-2 loss to the Islanders.

Their starts weren’t just penalty aided, though.

“We’re definitely looking for a response,” said Drew Stafford. “We went over the video this morning and there’s not really that much to talk about. We were extremely sloppy in many ways and there’s definitely a lot of things that we need to clean up. It’s real early still but, at the same time, there’s a lot of little habits that we can take care of now.

“That’s the beauty of this: we get a great chance to respond right away instead of sitting on (the Islanders) game for a few days. The boys are excited to get out there again and have a good one tonight.

“We are in control of how we prepare and how we come out. And, for whatever reason, against the Islanders we just didn’t have it right away. Not only that, but they did have it and they were relentless. The penalties aside, the bottom line is we were just out of sorts and we were just very sloppy. We didn’t have the speed and attention to detail that we like to play with. That’s something we’re going to try and nip in the bud right away here.”

The Jets were a resilient bunch a year ago, seldom letting losing streaks to last for longer than two games. And even with the new faces added to the lineup, Maurice is hoping the same characteristics that made his crew so tough to play against last year will resurface this season.

But how many games does it take for the coach to get a read on what he has?

“I don’t know if you put a number on it,” he said. “It’s enough games where you see the same team play. And when the same style of game gets played you get a good feel for what you’re good at and where you need to improve. Again, it’s going to take a little while for everybody to find their identity, but I think we’ve gotten fairly close to it at times.

(Monday) is a tough game to mix into the first two and say, ‘That’s the team.’ Clearly, we weren’t where we need to be to assess who we are.

“Even with the core veteran guys that you have you always have some new faces. Everybody comes into the NHL season with the dreams of 50 goals and 50 wins and then the puck drops and reality sets in. As soon as you can get back to the daily grind that is the NHL, the quicker you can get there, the better start you’re going to have.”

The Jets did get some good news this morning as both Nikolaj Ehlers and Dustin Byfuglien were on the ice for the skate. Byfuglien did not finish the game after getting slammed along the boards late in the third while Ehlers did take a hit on his knee.

“We were pretty confident after the game that he was going to recover,” Maurice said of Byfuglien. “If he gets through the skate today, and we expect he will, he’ll be in the lineup tonight.”

Michael Hutchinson will get the start in goal while the Rangers will counter with Henrik Lundqvist.

Ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait