Young guns pilot Jets to a win against Calgary in penultimate pre-season tilt

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This article was published 01/10/2015 (3637 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They came into Winnipeg Jets training camp seen simply as green bananas — certain to ripen one day, but absolutely no one was certain if would be in time for the start the 2015-16 National Hockey League season.

The Jets are now closer to getting their answer, and they have 15,000-plus fans as witnesses: young guns Nic Petan and Nikolaj Ehlers might be big-league ready right now.

The club’s two promising talents, along with Mark Scheifele, really jumped off the page in Thursday’s 3-1 exhibition victory over the Calgary Flames, combining for one goal and two assists in the kind of performance that should give the green bananas the green light to move into the Jets dressing room full time.

The win was the Jets second straight in the preseason and improves their record to 2-2-2 with the exhibition finale coming Saturday in Calgary. The Flames, who left a lot of their regulars back home in Alberta, fall to 4-3 in the preseason.

Knock, knock

Jets coach Paul Maurice has given both Petan and Ehlers every opportunity to earn big-league jobs over the last week or so, but Thursday’s line combinations gave them the chance to dropkick the door off its hinges. Petan, who chewed up the Western Hockey League as a centre but was moved to the wing during his time with Team Canada at the World Juniors and at the start of Jets camp, was flipped from the left side to the right on the club’s top line with Andrew Ladd and Bryan Little.

And it took him less than nine minutes to show up on the scoresheet. Working on the power-play, Petan gobbled up a drop from Ehlers before undressing Flames defenceman Ryan Wilson and then sliding a seeing-eye goal-mouth feed to Scheifele for his first of two goals on the night.

Ehlers, meanwhile, was teamed up with Scheifele and almost instantly had some chemistry percolating with the Jets centre. The dynamic Dane potted his first of the preseason with just 37.3 seconds left in the opening frame, cutting across the slot before beating Joni Ortio five hole.

By the final horn it could be said the biggest questions Maurice now faces with his two young stars are these:

• Does the Ehlers-Scheifele combo warrant a longer look, perhaps allowing him to reunite Ladd and Little with Blake Wheeler on the right side?

• And does Petan’s work in the preseason — now on both wings and as a specialist on the PP — mean he could be even more than a fourth liner?

“The next game is really important for them, too, because the one after that (the regular-season opener) I’ve got to make a roster up,” said Jets coach Paul Maurice, attempting to throw a little water on the preseason hype the young stars are generating.

“(The Flames) didn’t have their six D. I don’t want to minimize it. I’m really happy with the way those young guys are playing. Really happy. Whether it’s opening game, a year from now, whenever it is, they’re going to be good players for this team for an awfully long time.

“I don’t know if all of the exhibition season is going to tell you what you’re going to see in a week because for young players you’re always monitoring. And we’re going to see a different set of D here in a couple of days and that’s going to give you a different look.

“But,” he added, “they’re going to be good players and they’re going to be really important Winnipeg Jets.”

Tuned up

Sure, it’s only preseason. But when a goaltender enters a game with a 6.00 goals-against average and 82.5 save percentage he either can’t wait to get back into the net or is looking over his shoulder at the names behind him on the depth chart. Or both.

Michael Hutchinson’s numbers heading into Thursday were ugly with a capital “ugh” and when he whiffed on the Flames first goal — a wrister from the top of the circle from Deryk Engelland — the alarm bells had to be clanging in his head. But he was superb after that, kicking out 32 of 33 shots in regulation, including a highlight-reel stop on Sam Bennett that protected the Jets two-goal lead.

The Jets and Flames played served up some 3-on-3, as planned, after regulation and it took all of 35 seconds for them to score again, with Petan dropping for Little who then slid a perfect feed over to Tyler Myers for a little extra something-something for the fans to cheer about.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait