Jets confident they can flip the script

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This article was published 25/04/2023 (915 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Give them credit: The Winnipeg Jets are talking a good game despite being on the brink of playoff elimination.

“We have to be confident. We have to be. And we will be,” coach Rick Bowness said Tuesday as his team got ready to board a charter flight to Las Vegas where they face a must-win on Thursday night.

“We’ll be a very confident group going into that game. We’re going to have a swagger to us that says if we go out, it’s going to be one tough fight. When we play with that attitude, then I like our chances.”

Winnipeg trails three games to one in the best-of-seven series. They opened last Tuesday with a convincing 5-1 win in Las Vegas, but it’s been all downhill from there.

According to the NHL, 330 teams have been in Winnipeg’s precarious position. Only 31 of them went on to rally with three straight victories to extend their season.

“I don’t wanna talk about that at all,” goaltender Connor Hellebuyck said when presented with the long odds.

“What I’ll say is we have a lot of character. We’ve had a lot of adversity in our room. I think we have the character in our room to do something special and to do something great. And like we said, we’re looking for one game. We need one game and we’ll move on to the next one and we’ll prepare the same way.”

The Jets could get a boost with the return of Mark Scheifele, who was knocked out of Monday’s 4-2 loss with what appeared to be a shoulder or arm injury early in the first period.

“I just talked to Mark and he is feeling better than he did (Monday) night. So, he’s definitely on the day-to-day. Let’s put him in the hopeful category for Thursday,” said Bowness.

Same goes for forward Nikolaj Ehlers, who has yet to make an appearance in the series as he waits for medical clearance for an undisclosed upper-body injury suffered 15 days ago. He will practice with the team in Vegas on Wednesday and be further evaluated.

Defenceman Josh Morrissey (injured in Game 3) and forward Cole Perfetti (recovering from shoulder injury suffered in mid-February) are not available, although both players made the trip.

“You spend so much time preparing for these moments, and those are guys that just are heart-and-soul guys,” Hellebuyck said of seeing Morrissey and Scheifele go down in consecutive games.

“They care so much and we care so much about them that you just want them to be around and be part of the atmosphere. Those are hard losses, for sure.”

The Jets also brought four goaltenders with them to Vegas, as backup David Rittich is dealing with a lower-body issue suffered during practice earlier this week. Moose goaltenders Arvid Holm (who dressed as the backup Monday) and Oskari Salminen provide extra insurance.

Hellebuyck is confident the script might be about to flip for his squad.

“We haven’t had good luck so far. We’ve been playing pretty good though, despite all of our adversity. Now, we have to make sure our heads are right and know we’re in for the grind and we’re not out yet,” he said.

“At this point, you just take it one game at a time. We don’t need three. We need one and we’ll go from there. I like our team. I like how we’re playing. A bounce here, a bounce there and things can go well.”

Despite being on the losing end of three straight games, Bowness said there are reasons to believe.

“We’re not going to go into that game hoping to win and sit back and hope things go our way. That’s not how we play,” he said.

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“They’re an excellent hockey club, that’s why they finished first in the conference. But we’re going to go after them. We played a very aggressive game in Game 1 and when we’ve played well against them, we’ve been aggressive and when we’ve put ourselves in trouble, we’ve been on our heels a bit. We’re going to try to avoid playing on our heels and play as aggressive as we can and as intelligently as we can.”

Although the flow of play and overall chances are similar in the series, the Golden Knights have done a better job of taking advantage of theirs. Bowness says that has to change.

“We just have to figure out a way to capitalize on our chances,” he said. “If you look at their second and third goal (Monday), one off a skate, one off a tip. Those are the goals we have to find a way to score. We’re not going to score a lot of pretty goals against them, like they don’t against us. Just have to find a way to get greasy goals and keep going to the net, put pucks down by the net and make plays when they’re certainly there.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg

Mike McIntyre
Reporter

Mike McIntyre is a sports reporter whose primary role is covering the Winnipeg Jets. After graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College in 1995, he spent two years gaining experience at the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 1997, where he served on the crime and justice beat until 2016. Read more about Mike.

Every piece of reporting Mike produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.