Beware of mighty special teams

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/03/2016 (3539 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 4-0 home loss to the Chicago Blackhawks Friday night wasn’t a lot of fun for the Winnipeg Jets — and their assignment will be just as difficult today at the MTS Centre.

The Anaheim Ducks make their only visit to Winnipeg this NHL season for a 2 p.m. start, bringing the league’s best power play and penalty killing into the game.

That figures to make it a tall order for the Jets… with their No. 29-ranked power play and their No. 26-ranked penalty killing.

“This is one of the top teams in the league and we have kind of struggled against them if you look back to the playoffs last year, now this year,” said Jets winger Mathieu Perreault. “They’re a good team, so we’re going to have to have our ‘A’ game.

“We worked on special teams today because we know where they’re at. It was important to make sure we were ready.”

Only one team in the NHL has given up more power-play goals than Winnipeg’s 55 (Ottawa Senators, 56) and only one team has scored fewer than the Jets’ 34 power-play goals (Toronto Maple Leafs, 32) heading into Saturday’s games.

“Anaheim has tremendous speed and that’s always an asset on penalty kill,” said Jets forward Adam Lowry. “They force up the ice and they pressure you. They get some real timely saves. For us, if we can get some clean zone entries we’ll be able to move the puck more efficiently.

“On our penalty killing, it will start by trying to limit the amount of penalties we take against a team like this. You go in the box against the first-ranked power play, you’ll be in trouble.

“They have a lot of lethal weapons. Look what (Anaheim centre Ryan) Getzlaf is able to do on the half-wall. Then the guys they have on the back end, and Corey Perry in front of the net. It’s tough to shut it all down, they have so many options.”

On an optimistic note, the Jets have made some progress on their penalty killing recently.

In the last nine games, they are 24 for 26 (92.3 per cent) ­— far and away an improvement on their season average of 78.5 per cent.

That includes Friday’s one kill against Chicago, only the fourth time this season the NHL’s most-often short-handed team (256 times) has managed to limit an opponent to one power play.

“I think any time we’re able to get up-ice pressure and disrupt breakouts, when teams have a tough time breaking it in, it’s tough to set up,” Lowry said. “We’ve done more shot-blocking, been a little more aggressive when we can be and the anticipation has been better. It comes down to getting used to killing with certain guys and I think (Andrew Copp) and (Alex Burmistrov) have done a real good job lately.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca