Jets spoil home opener for New Jersey with 3-1 win

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This article was published 09/10/2015 (3649 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEWARK — They stuck a giant needle in all the balloons, double-dipped every single chip and siphoned the last bit of draft from the keg.

And so excuse both the New Jersey Devils and Boston Bruins if they aren’t cursing a blue streak as the Winnipeg Jets make their exit after spoiling their home openers on back-to-back nights.

Party poopers? Damn straight.

The Jets followed up Thursday’s 6-2 win against the Bruins with a workmanlike 3-1 victory over the Devils a night later in front of 14,579 fans at the Prudential Center in New Jersey’s debut.

The result pushes them to 2-0 to start the season with another back-to-back on the horizon: a Columbus Day matinee in Brooklyn on Monday against the New York Islanders and a visit to Madison Square Garden to face the Rangers the next night.

“I thought we had a little bit of an advantage tonight having played already,” said Jets captain Andrew Ladd. “It’s just a different pace than the preseason and we had a chance to figure it out. You could see it in our start.

“The way Jersey plays, they grind you and grind you the whole game and you saw that in the first period. They were good in the first.”

NO. 1A STEPS UP: The Jets again got excellent goaltending from their last line of defence as Michael Hutchinson kicked out 20 of the 21 shots he faced to win his 2015-16 debut. The result is significant not just because it helps get their No. 1A puckstopper engaged, but because it represents a fresh start after his numbers dropped off late last season.

Hutchinson, remember, was a rookie-of-the-year candidate up until the NHL All-Star Game with a 14-4-2 record and a 93.5 save percentage. But he was just 7-6-3 after that — with a 88.5 save percentage — as Ondrej Pavelec reclaimed the starter’s gig.

One of the keys for the Jets this season is to have the two push each other again. In Hutchinson Pavelec has a teammate who will challenge him for more work in the crease, unlike Chris Mason and Al Montoya before that. That competition brought out the best in the veteran Czech last year as he posted career-best numbers.

Hutchinson wasn’t peppered against the Devils, but he was tested particularly in the third period when the home side desperately attempted to rally. What he was especially effective at was rebound control and the only puck that beat him was actually shot into the net by Jacob Trouba on an in-tight clearing attempt.

Jets coach Paul Maurice said the decision to start Hutchinson wasn’t so much based on getting him engaged, but because he had earned it with his work a year ago.

“This was all about where he played last year and where he sits in that locker room for me,” said Maurice. “He carried the ball for an awfully long time (last year). When I saw back-to-backs at the start there was no doubt in my mind, regardless of what happened in last night’s game, that we were splitting the first pair and then we’ll see from there.

“As long as we get the kind of goaltending we got last year… there’s lots of hockey to be played. Our travel schedule, we’re going to play more back-to-back games than New Jersey is and they walk to a lot of their road games. We’ve got lots of hockey for all the goaltenders and all the players.”

MORE BALANCE AND A POWER-PLAY DEBUTS: Blake Wheeler and Mark Scheifele scored again for the Jets, while Ladd picked up his first of the year on a spectacular feed from Mathieu Perreault on the power-play. The Jets did not enjoy a man advantage in Boston, but threw it around effectively in going 1-for-4 against Jersey.

They also got contributions from all four lines again — the fourth trio of Andrew Copp, Nic Petan and Chris Thorburn was around the eight-minute mark in ice time — and all but three players, Bryan Little, Jacob Trouba and Toby Enstrom, have picked up points in the first two contests.

But the real key to the second win of the season was cleaning up some of the defensive miscues and second chances that were obvious in the opener against the Bruins. That included keeping traffic in front of Hutchinson to a minimum with the netminder then controlling shots and limiting rebounds.

“We needed to be quicker getting back to the puck and getting out for each other,” said Tyler Myers. “Tonight was a lot better. The whole game I thought we limited their chances, especially their second opportunities. Our coverage was good.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait