FROM THE PRESS BOX
MIKE SAYS: It’s one thing to lose hockey games. It’s another to do it the Winnipeg Jets way – all of them in regulation.
Look around the NHL standings right now and you’ll see plenty of teams with as many as five overtime and/or shootout defeats barely a month into the new season. The Jets have a grand total of zero, one of just four teams in that department. That’s a potentially big problem in a league where loser points are handed out like Halloween candy.
On Friday night, for example, there were four games on the schedule. All eight teams collected at least one point, with none of the contests being settled after 60 minutes.
Incredibly, there are only five squads right now that have a sub-.500 record – Vancouver, St. Louis, Nashville, Buffalo and Calgary – which is quite something in a 32-team loop. That’s a product of so many three-point games.
Wins, of course, are the ultimate goal. But the Jets have developed this habit of not being able to at least salvage something when they’re not at their best, such as Thursday night against the Kraken. That could prove costly over the 82-game campaign given how closely everyone is bunched together.
The Jets didn’t lose their seventh game of the year until Game No. 25 last season, so the fact they’ve already hit that mark through 17 contests this year shows how much things have changed.
(Fun fact: The Jets didn’t get their first loser point until Game 31 last year, going 21-9-0 up until that point, so this is not a new issue for them. They ultimately finished the campaign with just four, but their franchise-record 56 wins to go with just 22 regulation losses had them ultimately looking down on everyone else.)
Looking at this road trip finale against Calgary, I’m not about to declare today’s game as a “must win” — but it kind of feels like one, doesn’t it?
The quality of competition is about to start ramping up, so getting doused by the league-worst Flames to finish off a 1-5-0 road trip wouldn’t just deflating, there’s a good chance it would suddenly have the Jets on the outside looking in when it comes to the current Western Conference playoff picture.
KEN SAYS: The Jets have reached the final stop on the longest road trip of the season and listening to players and the coaching staff answer questions during the past few days, there is a sense that the time to get things sorted out has arrived.
There’s a greater sense of urgency when the topic of cleaning up the glaring errors that have been popping up with greater frequency than Arniel and company have been used to seeing.
With the end of the first quarter of the season just around the corner, reducing the sloppiness is a priority and playing a cleaner game is the expectation not the hope.
During the past two games, the Lowry line with Nino Niederreiter and Alex Iafallo has been fantastic. They’ve been driving play offensively, which led to three goals, and they’ve been sound defensively, setting the standard for where the Jets are trying to go.
Secondary scoring has been a hot topic in the first quarter of the season and it’s starting to come around.
I’m also curious what scoring a power play goal for the first time in nearly 11 months can do to open things up on the man-advantage for Kyle Connor.
Although Connor stayed productive on the power play during that lengthy stretch between goals, he’s one of the sharpest shooters in the NHL and is someone that is used to scoring on the power play.
“That’s a huge weight off his shoulders. He hasn’t scored in a long time on the power play,” said Arniel.
“But at the end of the day, our power play has been awesome because there’s an awful lot of emphasis put on him to kind of take him away — and it’s opened up a lot of holes the other way. To get him off that — in the back of his mind, not scoring in a while. Hopefully that leads to some better things.”
It’s a storyline Connor and the Jets were happy to put in the rearview mirror, but the reason it was noteworthy was because it was such an obscure statistic.
Seattle Kraken defenceman Vince Dunn, left, reaches for the puck against Winnipeg Jets’ Kyle Connor, right, during the second period. (Lindsey Wasson / The Associated Press)
That Connor’s previous power-play marker came on Dec. 23 of 2024 against the Toronto Maple Leafs seemed virtually impossible, especially since it was his ninth PP marker in the first 36 games of last season.
For the Flames, keep an eye on Blake Coleman. The 33-year-old winger is a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Tampa Bay Lightning and is off to a strong start, with seven goals and eight points in 19 games.
Coleman is a strong skater that plays with an edge and conscientious two-way player that also kills penalties. In short, he’s someone that would be a perfect piece to augment the Jets’ forward group, if the Flames get to the point where they lean into a potential rebuild.
Coleman is under contract through next season with an AAV of $4.9 million, so his contract would also fit well with what the Jets are trying to accomplish. He’d be a perfect fit in the middle-six, depending on how things shake out.
PROJECTED LINES
WINNIPEG JETS
FORWARDS
- Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
- Namestnikov-Toews-Perfetti
- Niederreiter-Lowry-Iafallo
- Pearson-Ford-Nyquist
DEFENCE
- Morrissey-DeMelo
- Samberg-Pionk
- Stanley-Schenn
GOAL
INJURED: D Fleury (concussion protocol), F Barron (mid-body), F Koepke (undisclosed)
HEALTHY SCRATCHES: D Miller, F Chibrikov, F Lambert
CALGARY FLAMES
FORWARDS
- Keirns-Kadri-Farabee
- Huberdeau-Frost-Coronato
- Honzek-Backlund-Coleman
- Lomberg-Zary-Klapka
DEFENCE
- Bahl-Andersson
- Kuznetsov-Weegar
- Bean-Pachal
GOAL
INJURED: D Parekh (upper body), F Pospisil (undisclosed)
HEALTHY SCRATCHES: D Hanley, F Sharangovich
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
Jets head coach Scott Arniel on the team’s recent play:
“Obviously a lot of inconsistencies throughout our team game. Like a lot of teams, we’re battling injuries, we’re getting guys coming back in the line-up. We’re getting guys coming back in the line-up, some guys going out. Some of the lines haven’t stayed the same for a number of games. There is some chemistry there.
“At the same time, we have a style of play we like to play every night. We’ve been a little inconsistent with that. That also comes (down) to your compete, your work ethic, how hard you want to battle each and every shift.
“If we take up those areas, be more consistent with our all-around team game, then it should improve.”
WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON
Ken is in Calgary for the finale of this season-long road trip. You can find the game analysis on our website.
Plus, a friendly reminder that the Jets monthly mailbag for November is open, so send your questions to Mike and Ken at your convenience either by email or on social media.
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