Jets focus on playoff push in ultra-competitive Western Conference

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This article was published 12/12/2018 (2460 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets keep racking up the wins — six in the team’s past seven games — but they aren’t exactly leaving rivals in their dust.

The Western Conference standings are as muddied as ever as teams pass the 30-game mark, with just six points’ difference between sitting on top and being outside the playoff line.

Jets fans might want to grab the Tums, because head coach Paul Maurice doesn’t expect much separation to occur in the coming weeks.

“We knew that coming into the season, that this thing is going to be jammed up right to the very end. What did we finish, 114 (points) last year? But we still aren’t qualifying until the last 10 days of the year. So this thing is going to be a grinder right to the very end,” Maurice said Wednesday.

The Nashville Predators lead the Central Division with 41 points, while Winnipeg is right behind them with 40 (and a game in hand). The Colorado Avalanche have 39 to sit third. The Calgary Flames (40), San Jose Sharks (37) and Anaheim Ducks (37) occupied the top three spots in the Pacific Division prior to games Wednesday night.

The Edmonton Oilers and Dallas Stars held the wild-card spots with 35 points, while the Vegas Golden Knights (35 points) and Minnesota Wild (34 points) were ninth and 10th, respectively.

“It’s crazy, you feel like you’re playing so well and you’re only six, seven points up on a playoff spot,” Jets forward Adam Lowry said. Or, in the case of the Jets, just five points.

“There’s a lot of parity in this league. And at the same time, it’s important you keep finding ways to win games and (keep) piling up points. Points now can make a lot of difference later on when there starts to be some separation. Some teams will go on slides. If your team hits a bit of a rut, it’s important you build that cushion early,” Lowry said.

There’s a lot more separation in the Eastern Conference, where the Tampa Bay Lightning had a 17-point cushion on the ninth-place team. The Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals all had more breathing room than any team out west.

“Just look at the Western Conference and (there’s no) game that should be a light night. But that’s a good thing, that’s a good way to train. There certainly aren’t any light nights in those last six weeks or the playoffs,” Maurice said.

‘It’s crazy, you feel like you’re playing so well and you’re only six, seven points up on a playoff spot’
– Jets forward Adam Lowry

Life will get especially interesting if a pair of underwhelming Central teams can turn their games around, as Maurice predicts may happen.

“I think both Chicago and St. Louis, there’s just too many veteran players there for them, they’re going to arc back up. They may or may not be able to claw their way back in (playoff spot), but they’re certainly going to win big games against good opponents. So our division may get tighter,” he said.

The Jets have had a run of recent games against teams below them in the standings and have fared well. But the schedule is going to get tougher. Seven of their next 12 games are against teams currently occupying a playoff spot, including a date with the league-leading Lightning on Sunday.

Winnipeg is just 2-5-2 this season against top-10 teams based on point percentage.

“It’s a reminder that when you get into the upper echelon, it does not take much to lose a game. It’s the one or two shots. The edge becomes fine, and we weren’t great in those games,” Maurice said.

That means the team is 17-4-0 against everyone else.

“You’ve got to be really careful when you look at your calendar when you weigh it. We’ve all seen at times where, that week, you thought might be some weaker teams coming in and you get beat bad, and there’s a really difficult stretch and you go on a run. One of the things we’ve been good at, going back to last year and probably even prior to that, is we’ve beaten the teams below us at the right rate,” Maurice said.

‘Just look at the Western Conference and (there’s no) game that should be a light night. But that’s a good thing, that’s a good way to train. There certainly aren’t any light nights in those last six weeks or the playoffs’
– Jets head coach Paul Maurice

“We haven’t played a lot of teams that are ahead of us, certainly recently, but we’ve done what we needed to do. There’s lots of proving ground left for this hockey team. There’s a heavier schedule coming. There’s a stack of games that the schedule itself becomes heavier. Then the team weight, it becomes heavier. It’s also where we became a good team last year, in a stretch of five very, very heavy games.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg