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And so they meet again.
The latest round of Friendly Manitoba vs Minnesota Nice has likely been circled on plenty of hockey calendars ever since the final weekend of 2023, in which the bad blood was flowing as the Jets and Wild met in back-to-back games.
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In case you need a quick refresher: Winnipeg took the Dec. 30 clash at Canada Life Centre by a 4-2 score, a contest which included Brenden Dillon injuring Kirill Kaprizov with an uncalled crosscheck, then fighting Jacob Middleton later in the game.
Just 24 hours later, the Jets skated away with a 3-2 triumph in the Twin Cities, with Adam Lowry dropping the gloves with Patrick Maroon off the opening faceoff, and then Ryan Hartman deliberately high-sticking Cole Perfetti in the face later in the period, getting caught on a hot mic admitting it was payback for the Kaprizov incident.
Hartman, whose recent history with Winnipeg includes injuring Nikolaj Ehlers last season, was fined but not suspended as heated post-game words were exchanged by players and plenty of fans in both markets.
Which brings us to tonight. Will there be more fireworks? Stay tuned.
“Well again, there’s a lot at stake for them,” Jets head coach Rick Bowness said on Tuesday morning. “I think those things have been dealt with and it’s a whole new game. The players dictate all of that. We wish we had kind of kept it out of the media, that’s our side. But it didn’t (stay out of the media)… so you deal with it. The most important thing for both teams tonight is the two points. The players will take care of things on the ice.”
As for the legal play between the whistles, the Jets will be looking to bounce back after a rough 6-3 loss on Monday afternoon in Calgary which had Bowness calling out the majority of his team, save for goaltender Connor Hellebuyck and centre Sean Monahan, who scored all three goals in the first period to build a 3-1 lead they couldn’t hold on to.
“We’ve just got to get back to Winnipeg, hard-nosed, hard to play against hockey,” Bowness said of getting right back at it one day later. “That’s as easy as we’ve played, and as easy to play against as we have all season. So flush it and we’ll get ready to play (Tuesday).”
Standing in their way is a Wild squad looking to carry the momentum off a 10-7 victory over the Vancouver Canucks as they try to claw their way back into the Western Conference wildcard picture. No, that’s not a typo. Minnesota scored seven goals in the third period and hit double-digits over the NHL’s No. 1 team, with two players (Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek) each registering a hat trick along with three assists.
“Division rival, a team that we always have intense games with, for sure,” said Monahan.
“But at the end of the day, like I said, it shouldn’t matter who you’re playing at this time of year. Scoreboard watching and trying to get every point we can. We want to bring our A-game and, more importantly, get back on track. It doesn’t really matter about them. It’s about us getting back to our game and doing the things that make us a great team. So we have that opportunity (Tuesday) night.”
Laurent Brossoit vs Marc-Andre Fleury is the expected goalie duel. Neither team held a full morning skate, so take the tentative lineups listed below with a grain of salt.
Bowness said on Tuesday morning that lineup changes were coming, though he wasn’t ready to reveal what they were going to be.
Defenceman Logan Stanley and forward Rasmus Kupari were on the ice with Brossoit on Tuesday, so it’s possible that both Stanley and Kupari draw into the lineup.
FROM THE PRESS BOX
MIKE SAYS: Life moves fast, and the Jets had a bit of Jekyll and Hyde creep into their play over the past two games. That’s not something you can say often about this year’s team, which has been the picture of consistency.
Of course, it’s hard to play the same way for 82 straight, so ebbs and flows should be expected. We’ll see if they can quickly return to playing what Bowness simply refers to as “Winnipeg Jets hockey.” That sure wasn’t it yesterday
The Nikolaj Ehlers and Cole Perfetti situation continues to be a storyline. Frankly, I was surprised at how candid Bowness was yesterday morning when I asked him in Calgary what the two struggling scorers need to do in order to earn more ice time. This, after they both were near career lows Saturday in Vancouver.
“Well right now they’re spending way too much time in our zone. They are. So their puck management is going to have to get a lot better. And they’re going to have to generate some offence, which they’re not doing on a consistent basis right now.
“There’s one or two rushes a game, that’s not enough. If they can manage the puck a lot better going through the neutral zone and spend less time in our zone and then they’re going to create offence. But right now it’s the exact opposite,” Bowness said.
He was only getting started.
“We’re hoping to get them back up where they belong in terms of minutes. But that’s going to be up to them. Like we’re past the point of just giving guys ice time. We’ll give you the ice time, but now you’ve got to work hard to maintain it. We’ve got 30 games to go. We’re making a big push here. We’ll give them lots of time to work through it, but right now they know the expectations we have.”
Safe to say neither player dazzled a few hours later against the Flames, although they had plenty of company in that department. Perfetti has now gone 10 games without a point and has just one assist in the last 13 outings. Ehlers has a solitary helper in the past eight games.
I wonder what else Bowness could have planned. More line shuffling? A press box stint as a healthy scratch for a game or two for Perfetti? I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point.
From left: Alex Iafallo, Gabriel Vilardi, Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Josh Morrissey celebrate Scheifele‘s goal against the Panthers back in October. Head coach Rick Bowness seems keen on keeping the Scheifele, Connor and Vilardi line together. (John Woods / The Canadian Press files)
KEN SAYS: This is a game that means a lot for each side, for very different reasons. The Jets are coming off one of their worst efforts of the season and going up against a key rival should help sharpen the focus. The Wild? They had an amazing rally against the Canucks and are now just two points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Bowness wasn’t ready to reveal his planned lineup changes and it will be interesting to see if it’s one change or two coming for the Jets.
The Jets continue to search for the right formula on the top two lines, though Bowness seems committed to keeping the top trio of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi together.
“You can’t hide behind analytics. There are a whole lot of other parts to this game,” Bowness said on Tuesday morning when asked about the reluctance to reunite Nikolaj Ehlers with Scheifele and Vilardi.
“The easy thing is to hide behind that, but there’s whole other parts and components to this game that play a part for every player. I know that’s always an option. We talk about it as being an option. And you may see that again very soon. We will see what happens down the road. It’s game to game and we’re coming off one of the best games we played against Vancouver and that (Scheifele) line won the game for us and we will see where it goes from there.”
No matter how many changes are made, the Jets need to respond with a far more structured effort, especially when you consider the Wild just set a franchise record with 10 goals.
Brossoit is set for his 14th start of the campaign and he’s done an excellent job with his limited workload this season, posting a 2.22 goals-against average and .920 save percentage.
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