Tough schedule for the Jets as they begin a stretch of away games

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This article was published 31/10/2015 (3609 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Today it might look a little ghostly but by Sunday it will be just ghastly with the scheduling challenge the Winnipeg Jets have in front of them in the next month.

Tonight’s game at Nationwide Arena against the Columbus Blue Jackets starts a stretch of eight of the next nine games on the road. Between today and the time the calendar turns to December, the team will have played 11 road games and just four home games.

“The biggest difference is being away from your family, especially when you have kids,” Jets captain Andrew Ladd said after this morning’s game-day date. “It’s more FaceTime and phone calls which is tougher on everybody, and tough, obviously on your wife, and a bigger burden on her.

“It’s tough not being able to see them every day.”

The Jets are 6-3-1 so far and 3-1-0 on the road,

“Hockey-wise I don’t think it changes,” Ladd said. “We’re creatures of habit. We have our routines every day and not much really changes for us. So I don’t think it makes a big difference.

“You look at our schedule and you go: ‘Okay, I think if we can get through this month playing some good hockey, we’ll set up ourselves up for December where we’re playing a fair amount at home, too.”

The Blue Jackets played Friday night, losing 2-1 in Washington. The Jets tonight are into the front end of a back-to-back; they go to Montreal Sunday.

“Fatigue hasn’t set in,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said about back-to-backs early in the season. “I’m not looking for a whole lot of advantage in that tonight.”

Maurice is mindful of the month ahead but saw a similar track last season and pointed out that his team blossomed when that challenge arose.

“The road takes on a life of its own,” Maurice said. “It’s either a really good place for your team and sometimes if it’s not, it’s still a great place to sort things out.

“I thought last year November was where we kind of found our game. We went into the Island, to New York, to New Jersey early on there and got to our game, then into Chicago on back-to-back nights.

“So we’ve been afforded the opportunity to play four of our first eight (road games) in back-to-backs … so I think it will hold true again.

“We’re going to work real hard at finding our game here this month.”

Maurice was also asked this morning about coaching counterpart John Tortorella, who took over the Blue Jackets just more than a week ago.

“There’s nothing tough about it because you’re excited, you’ve been out of work and you’re jacked up to get back to the rink and you’ve got problems to solve because that’s what you do for a living so it’s exciting every day,” Maurice said. “You’ve got a whole new group of players that you’re in love with — because when you leave them, you hate ‘em (laughs) — so it’s an exciting time for him.

“Watching that game last night (in Washington), that looked like to me a John Tortorella team to me all day long. They skated, they got on the body and they competed. It was all Washington could handle last night.”

The Jets look like they will start Ondrej Pavelec in goal tonight against the 2-9-0 Blue Jackets.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca