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The Winnipeg Jets made quite the first impression, drubbing the Edmonton Oilers 6-0 on Wednesday night to kick off the 2024-25 NHL season. Now they’ll try to follow that up with a successful home opener as they host the Chicago Blackhawks at Canada Life Centre.
“Turn the page,” Jets head coach Scott Arniel said following the morning skate. “Different opponent, different circumstances, we’ve got to come home and build on a lot of the good things that we did.”
The visitors, led by reigning rookie-of-the-year Connor Bedard, will be looking for their first victory after dropping a 5-2 decision in Salt Lake City.
Connor Hellebuyck, fresh off a 30-save shutout against Connor McDavid and company, will make a second straight start for the Jets. Arvid Soderblom gets the call in the net for the Blackhawks.
This is the first of 26 Central Division games for the Jets, who went a stellar 20-5-1 against their closest rivals last season on the way to a second-place finish. It’s also the first of three meetings with Chicago, as Winnipeg will visit the Windy City on Dec. 7 and Apr. 12.
The Blackhawks played the Jets tough last season, even though the Jets took seven of a possible eight points (3-0-1).
“They played hard defensively. They committed to making it a difficult game for us to try to create offence, especially after they got off to a bad start last year and were down in the standings,” said Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey, who had two assists in the season opener and logged 23:39 of ice time.
“That’s where a lot of teams will start looking for self-stats and start opening up the game and I felt like they were pretty committed to a team system. We can expect that again tonight I’m sure and we have to be ready to go.”
Winnipeg will go with the same lineup, meaning defenceman Dylan Coghlan and forward David Gustafsson will be the healthy scratches.
Here’s some more information to get you set:
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MIKE SAYS: Paging Nikolaj Ehlers, Cole Perfetti and Vlad Namestnikov. As impressive as the Jets were 48 hours ago, Winnipeg is going to need a lot more from that trio to build sustained success.
After a fairly pedestrian pre-season, the Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers line had a rough go against the Oilers. According to NaturalStatTrick, they were Winnipeg’s worst — by a country mile — with a Corsi share of just 23.53 per cent during five-on-five play.
To put that in the simplest terms, Edmonton skaters generated 77.47 per cent of the shot attempts whenever Arniel had those three on the ice. In other words, the ice was severely tilted. That’s not good.
The other top-scoring line of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Gabe Vilardi wasn’t a whole lot better (36.67 per cent at even strength) which drives home how much Winnipeg’s so-called bottom six drove the bus.
It says here there could be a potential fix staring Arniel in the face: Flipping Ehlers and Connor. I’m not saying it should happen immediately — although I don’t think it could hurt — but it’s something to keep an eye on.
It looks like the Jets are at least close to a sellout tonight, and perhaps the only thing that might stop them from getting there is the fact more than 30,000 are going to be crammed inside Princess Auto Stadium at the very same time watching the Blue Bombers play their final regular season home game.
Home openers are always special, so this should be a real fun one.
Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck will make his second straight start for the Jets. (Amber Bracken / The Canadian Press files)
KEN SAYS: After an impressive start to the season, what will the Jets do for an encore?
The Jets did a long list of things well in the blowout win over the Oilers. Along with those two power-play markers, the Jets got goals from six different players and three of their four lines at even strength — and that’s a recipe they’d love to see on a regular basis.
Still, there are some things the team is looking to clean up when it comes to their play without the puck.
“We gave up a lot of looks. For Game 1, it’s going to happen but nowhere close to how stingy we can be defensively, we were careless with the puck at times and a little bit lackadaisical,” said Jets defenceman Dylan DeMelo.
The trio of Adam Lowry (one goal, two points), Nino Niederreiter (two assists) and Mason Appleton (one goal, three points) was involved in three even-strength goals in the opener and set the tone on a number of levels.
Haydn Fleury had an impressive Jets’ debut, providing more than 16 steady minutes on the third pairing, despite being cut for nine stitches on a deflected puck that caught him in the visor.
It’s too bad that Laurent Brossoit (knee injury) isn’t here for a showdown with his old job-share partner and good friend in Hellebuyck. Brossoit is recovering nicely and is expected to be ready to play in the near future, according to Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson.
Bedard is one of the players in the NHL who is worth the price of admission. The Calder Trophy winner and former Regina Pats sniper had three goals in three games against the Jets last season, including the overtime winner on Dec. 27. He’s an electrifying player and someone the Jets need to pay attention to every time that he’s on the ice.
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