Jets ace test with 99

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This article was published 11/04/2015 (3804 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A whole lot of nothing turned into a celebration day at the MTS Centre for the final, meaningless game of the 2014-15 NHL regular season.

For a change, the lack of meaning was good news for the Winnipeg Jets, having already secured their berth in the Stanley Cup playoffs Thursday.

The Jets scratched eight regulars — health reasons, coach Paul Maurice said — and their opponents, the Calgary Flames, took the game just as seriously. Also in the Western Conference playoffs after last Thursday’s results, the Flames sat out nine regulars.

Whose B team was better?

The Jets, and by a country mile, drilling the Flames 5-1 using a little of Calgary’s game plan — a big third period. Winnipeg fired four in the closing 20 minutes to win going away, reaching 99 points for the regular season for the first time in franchise history. It’s also the most ever for a Winnipeg-based NHL team.

The Flames finished the year with 97 points and enter the first round against the Vancouver Canucks.

“This one, we won’t over-assess it,” said Jets coach Paul Maurice. “We probably won’t watch it.”

Did reaching 99 points hold any significance?

“We made the playoffs,” said Jets defenceman Dustin Byfuglien, back in the lineup after serving his four-game suspension. “Nothing (more).”

The 15,016 fans —the 147th straight official sellout at the MTS Centre — saluted the Jets with ovations during the warm-up, the pre-game entrance, the pre-game special awards presentations and during the waning moments of the third period.

After trading goals in the first minute of the game, one by Calgary’s Michael Ferland and another by Winnipeg’s Drew Stafford, the Jets rapped the Flames with scores by Michael Frolik, Lee Stempniak, Adam Lowry and Matt Halischuk in the runaway third. 

On the outs

The Jets sat out goalie Ondrej Pavelec, defencemen Jacob Trouba, Tyler Myers and Mark Stuart and forwards Andrew Ladd, Bryan Little, Blake Wheeler, Eric O’Dell and Mathieu Perreault. Stuart took the warmup, possibly in an attempt to play, but Maurice likely squashed the idea.

The Flames, who could have put some pressure on the Pacific Division’s second-place team, Vancouver, with a win, opted to play it safe. And it was probably smart, considering the Canucks were facing Edmonton later Saturday.

They scratched goalie Kari Ramo, defencemen Kris Russell, Dennis Wideman, T.J. Brodie and Raphael Diaz and forwards Johnny Gaudreau, David Jones, Sean Monahan, Jiri Hudler and Paul Byron.

In we go

The Jets used Game 82 to give some important minutes to two important players.

They brought Byfuglien and defenceman Toby Enstrom back into the lineup, Enstrom after missing last week’s stellar three-game road trip with injury.

Both looked just fine and will be ready as regulars when the playoff series begins.

“They’re ready to go,” Maurice said. “Buff played 24 (minutes), Toby just under 21. It’s all we were looking for. Hard game for defencemen to play, because forwards aren’t where they’re supposed to be most of the time and their forwards aren’t where they’re going to be a lot of the time. All you need to do is get them a certain number of minutes to get them back up (to speed) and then our practice level will be high this week. They’ll be ready.”

Favourite number

The Jets improved their season to 43 total wins and reduced their goals against to 210, both bests. The goals-against numbers in actual hockey was 204, placing Winnipeg in the top 10 in NHL defence, the franchise’s highest ever. Never before had the team been out of the bottom 10 in this category.

But Maurice’s favourite number from the season was a peculiar but telling choice — the team’s 26 regulation losses in 82 games. In that column, the Jets are a top-10 NHL club.

“The number that I appreciate is that we lost 13 games in regulation, home and road,” Maurice said. “There’s some strength to our game in both places. When you figure we started 1-4 this year, and had 22 regulation losses (in the next 77 games) …we were a pretty darn good team in regulation, came ready to play most nights.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca