Philadelphia Flyers at Winnipeg Jets

With no NHL games on Friday — and no out-of-town scoreboard to be watching and worrying about – Winnipeg Jets coach Scott Arniel enjoyed a relaxing evening at home.

“I got to watch Artemis II come down and see a piece of history,” he said.

Now, it’s back to his own team’s mission, one he hopes includes a successful splashdown into the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Jets have won three straight games they couldn’t afford to lose, and they likely need to rattle off four more.

Tonight’s opponent should be equally desperate. The Philadelphia Flyers have a perilous hold on third place in the Metropolitan Division, but they have just a one-point lead over the New York Islanders and a two-point buffer over the Columbus Blue Jackets and a three-point gap over the Washington Capitals.

“They are getting some real good goaltending, I know that is one area since the Olympics. They transition well and they have got four lines they are using,” said Arniel.

“They have got some new names in there. They are the type of team that will attack you if you make mistakes, turn pucks over, they will attack you quickly, and transition well. So, they are a team that is in the middle of this rush of the playoff drives and I think you can see they are building off each and every game.”

The Jets enter play three points back of Los Angeles, which holds the final Western Conference wildcard spot, but that could grow by puck drop. The Kings are hosting the Edmonton Oilers this afternoon. Winnipeg is also two points behind Nashville, which entertains the Minnesota Wild today.

“Another big one for us,” said forward Alex Iafallo, who scored his 13th goal of the year in Thursday’s 3-2 win in St. Louis. “Every game here on out is obviously going to be huge. Tonight, six o’clock game, we’ve got to be ready right as the puck drops. Got to be aggressive as we can be and get that edge.”

The Jets will roll with the same lineup once again, which means Connor Hellebuyck starts for the ninth straight game. Philadelphia is expected to counter with Dan Vladar, who got pulled on Thursday night in Detroit in an eventual 6-2 loss to the Red Wings.

“It’s going to be a good battle,” said Iafallo.

This is the second meeting of the year between the teams — but the first in nearly six months. Winnipeg went into Philadelphia way back on Oct. 16 and skated away with a 5-2 victory.

—Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe

46% of Winnipeg adults read The Free Press print and digital products weekly.

MAILBAG CALLOUT

With the calendar flipping to the final month of the regular season, the Jets’ monthly mailbag is open, so please send your questions to Mike and Ken by replying to this email or reaching out via email or social media.

FROM THE PRESS BOX

MIKE SAYS: There’s no rest for the weary in the case of Hellebuyck, who will start for the 20th time in the last 22 games. That would make this one of the busiest stretches of his career — and in a season where he underwent arthroscopic knee surgery and also played five games at the Winter Olympics, leading his team to a gold medal.

Are the Jets running their workhorse into the ground? The numbers would suggest no, since Hellebuyck has been excellent in most of his recent appearances.

“The big thing coming out of the Olympic break was he was like, ‘We are making a run at it coach, use me.’ He wants to play every game and that is kind of how he always wants to go into every season,” said Arniel.

“That is why we have been kind of giving him lots of days off with breaks in between. The surgery helped him clean up some issues that were there and allowed him to go to the Olympics and do what he did. Now, he is on a roll and he is in that groove and I try to stay away from him. That is what you need at this time of year, one of your best players has to be your goaltender and he has shown us that.”

Hellebuyck is up to eighth in the NHL in shots faced this season, which is remarkable when you consider he missed nearly a month of action due to his injury.

Winnipeg had done a great job of staying out of the penalty box in recent games, but their discipline slipped a bit against the Blues as they committed five on-ice infractions. They’ll need to get back to their angelic ways to help their cause.

“We have done a really good job of keeping our stick off people, checking with our legs and that is what I always talk about, ‘check with your legs.’ We got three stick infractions the other night just as you guys started to ask me about it,” Arniel joked this morning.

“For me, that is part of your defending, part of your checking, to check with your stick on the ice and check with your legs. I would like to flip that away when we are at five power plays, and they are at one, and that would be better for us tonight.”

Winnipeg only earned one power play against St. Louis, which the bench boss would also like to see change tonight.

“It would be nice to get a few opportunities,” said Arniel.

“But it’s just being consistent with what we’re doing. We had five attacks the other night in the one power play against St. Louis. That’s what we did in the game here at home (against the Kraken). If we get the opportunities, we’ve got to find a way to be dangerous. That’s sort of the message we just talked about. When you create those second and third opportunities, that’s when you get the penalty kill on their heels.”

KEN SAYS: A lot of eyes will once again be on Jets centre Mark Scheifele, who is one point shy of hitting triple digits for the first time in his NHL career.

He’s been on an absolute heater of late, collecting 16 points during his past eight games (including two helpers against the Blues) to reach 99, which is one point shy of the single-season record in the 2.0 era, set by Marian Hossa of the Atlanta Thrashers during the 2006-07.

Mark Scheifele is one point shy of hitting triple digits for the first time. (John Woods / The Canadian Press files)

Looking deeper into the archives, only three players hit the century mark in the 1.0 Jets era: Teemu Selanne during his 76-goal, 132-point season in 1992-93, Paul MacLean had 101 in 1984-85 and Dale Hawerchuk did it on six different occasions (including a career-high of 130 points in 1984-85).

Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey scored a goal and saved another with an incredible effort to prevent Dylan Holloway from stuffing home his second snipe of the first period on Thursday night.

Morrissey has five points during his past five games, while logging big minutes and going up against the opposition’s top lines. He’s up to 55 points in 73 games and his 14 goals are tied for the second most in his career, two shy of the 16 he recorded in 2022-23 (when he had a career-best 76 points).

For the Flyers, Porter Martone, who was chosen sixth overall in the 2025 NHL Draft, has made an immediate impact since joining the team after completing his freshman season with the Michigan State Spartans. Martone is playing a top-six role on the wing as a power forward and has already chipped in two goals and six points in his first six NHL games.

Travis Konecny leads the Flyers in scoring with 67 points, while Owen Tippett leads the team in goals with 28, while forwards Trevor Zegras (27 goals, 66 points) and Christian Dvorak (18 goals, 50 points) have had excellent bounce-back seasons to help with offensive production.

PROJECTED LINES

WINNIPEG JETS

FORWARDS

Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo
Perfetti-Lowry-Vilardi
Niederreiter-Namestnikov-Lambert
Koepke-Toews-Rosen

DEFENCE

Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Fleury-Bryson

GOAL

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Healthy scratches: D Heinola

Injured: D Salomonsson (concussion protocol), D Miller (lower-body), C Barron (lower-body), F Nyquist (undisclosed)

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

FORWARDS

Foerster-Zegras-Tippett
Konecny-Dvorak-Martone
Bump-Cates-Mitchkov
Barkey-Couturier-Glendening

DEFENCE

Sanheim-Ristolainen
York-Drysdale
Seeler-Andrae

GOALIE

Vladar
Ersson

Injured: F Grebenkin (upper body), C Abols (ankle)

Healthy scratches: D Juulsen, F Grundstrom, F Hathaway, F Wilson

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

Winnipeg Jets forward Gabriel Vilardi on being named Winnipeg’s nominee for the King Clancy Award:

“It’s pretty cool. Honoured to get nominated for that. I think us, as a team and an organization, we do a great job. There’s a lot of guys in here that spend a lot of their time with different charities and different things with the Jets. Project 11 and the WJHA (Winnipeg Jets Hockey Academy). I think it’s more credit to the Jets, honestly, because they make it so easy for us. So, yeah, it’s cool and something I’m proud of and something I’m going to keep doing as long as I’m here, for sure.”