Perfetti looking for a St. Louis spark

ST. LOUIS — Cole Perfetti isn’t looking for another Manitoba Miracle. But the struggling Winnipeg Jets winger sure could use a change of fortune after a frustrating run of bad luck and sub-par play.

Perhaps Wednesday’s Central Division clash here in Missouri might get him and some of his teammates going. A St. Louis spark, if you will.

It’s the first meeting between the Jets and Blues since that magical moment last spring, when Perfetti saved his team’s season with a last-second, Game 7 tying goal. Winnipeg went on to win the series thanks to Adam Lowry’s overtime heroics.

“It’s nice to look back on and it’s a very good memory to have,” Perfetti said Tuesday when asked by reporters to take a stroll into the past.

It was a short trip.

“We’re just looking to go into St. Louis and put a few good games (together) before Christmas, “ he said, eyes firmly planted on the not-so-rosy present.

“These are massive games for us. We’re going in there, obviously they’re a divisional opponent, so it’s going to be a big game for us. Let’s start the trip off on the right foot.”

A high-ankle sprain suffered in the final pre-season game delayed the start of Perfetti’s season by 14 games. The lingering effects of that injury are still evident as he tries to get back up to speed — figuratively and literally — on a slumping Jets squad that desperately needs him to return to form.

Perfetti, 23, posted a career-high 50 points (18 goals, 32 assists) in 82 regular-season games last year and was hoping to make an even bigger impact this season. Instead, the 10th-overall pick from 2020 has just seven points (2G, 5A) through 18 games since returning, a pace that translates to 32 points (9G, 23A) over a full season.

Which brings us to a pivotal week for a Jets team that sits at 15-15-2 following Monday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators.

That game was a microcosm of Perfetti’s season. There were positives, including several offensive looks and an assist on Neal Pionk’s second-period goal.

But there were also moments that left fans and pundits scratching their heads. Most notably, Perfetti was knocked off the puck in the Senators’ zone during three-on-three overtime by Tim Stützle — not exactly a bruising power forward — who quickly turned the play the other way, leading to Brady Tkachuk’s game-winning goal.

“Every time you’re out there, you’re trying to make an impact on the game. It was great to get that opportunity, obviously it doesn’t go the way you wanted, so it’s frustrating in that sense,” Perfetti explained when asked about the sequence.

“We outplayed them. It’s frustrating to not get the two points, but we’ll take what we can get from it, learn from it, look at what we did well, look at our mistakes, clean a few things up and then put it behind us.”

Jets head coach Scott Arniel wasn’t pointing the finger at Perfetti, perhaps hoping a bit of positive reinforcement might help.

“That’s the best game I’ve seen out of him since he’s come back from the injury. He did a lot of things well without the puck, with the puck,” he said.

Perfetti does have assists in three of his last four games and believes that’s a sign of better days ahead. He’s now skating on a line with Nino Niederreiter and Vlad Namestnikov, who is in an even bigger funk with no goals and one assist over his last 20 outings.

“I’m feeling a bit better,” said Perfetti.

“The last two games, we’ve had a lot of chances and a lot of zone time. That’s a step in the right direction, with what we’re creating. We’ve had a lot of almost, maybes. With the chances that we’ve created the last little bit here, the puck is eventually going to go in. It has to. It’s going to turn for us and when it does, we’ve got to be ready to go.”

Perfetti wasn’t making excuses, but acknowledged the condensed NHL schedule in an Olympic year, along with the resulting lack of practice time, has slowed his recovery.

“It’s hard enough to come back from injury, but when you have a crazy schedule and there’s travel and not a lot of practice days, it’s hard to get back into the five-on-five, playmaking practices,” he said.

So is every game.

“We’re 32 games in and we’re not in a playoff spot right now,” Perfetti noted.

St. Louis figures to be ornery after getting thumped 5-2 at home Monday by a struggling Nashville club. The Blues are now 12-15-7, ahead of only Calgary and Vancouver in point percentage. You can bet they’ll be eager to exact some revenge for the devastating way their Stanley Cup run ended last spring, too.

“A lot of memories will be brought back when we play St. Louis. But at the end of the day it’s a new year, new team, so we just have to worry about one game at a time,” said Jets centre Mark Scheifele.

“That was an intense series. It’s weird that we haven’t played them already. It’s almost Christmas and we haven’t seen them. It’s going to be an interesting road trip. Big games coming up starting with St. Louis. We want to go into the Christmas break feeling good.”

On Tuesday, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong met with local media and made it clear significant changes could be coming, lamenting a lack of secondary scoring and a season that has fallen well short of expectations.

Sound familiar, Jets fans?

After St. Louis, Winnipeg heads to Denver to face the league-leading Colorado Avalanche on Friday, before continuing on to Salt Lake City to meet the Utah Mammoth on Sunday. The road hasn’t been kind to the Jets lately. They opened the season with four straight road wins but have managed just three victories in their last 11 away from home (3-8-1).

Still, Arniel struck an optimistic tone, much as he did with Perfetti, following a 1-2-1 homestand.

“These last four games, we’ve faced four really good teams and we kept three of them under 10 five-on-five scoring chances. To me, it went eight, five, and (Monday) night was seven. That’s a great start, for me,” said Arniel.

“If we recognize that, that’s going to help us on the road or at home, it’s going to help us to stay in games.”

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