Pavelec keeping boo-birds at bay

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This article was published 05/10/2014 (4354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THERE were a lot of questions surrounding goaltender Ondrej Pavelec coming into training camp.

Here’s his early answer — 76 saves on 82 shots and a .927 save percentage.

Pavelec finished off a strong camp with his best performance of the pre-season Saturday night at the MTS Centre, turning away 17 of 18 Calgary Flames shots to backstop the Winnipeg Jets to a 4-1 victory in their final pre-season game.

Pavelec played in four of Winnipeg’s seven pre-season games and if the biggest question surrounding his play coming into camp was whether he could raise his save percentage, the earliest indications are positive after a 2013-14 season in which he limped to a .901 mark.

Stifling

Pavelec said Saturday’s stifling outing came at a perfect time.

“Now the real hockey starts. So you want to have that confidence. So I’m happy we won the game but most importantly I felt really good,” said Pavelec.

“But now it’s over and done and we have to focus on the first (regular-season) game.” Head coach Paul Maurice said he’s happy with what he saw from his team’s goalies in the pre-season, but pointed out the success of the goalies will depend on a lot more than what kind of numbers Pavelec and backup Michael Hutchinson record between the posts.

“I’m not overly getting excited about the numbers we’ve seen, or particularly concerned,” said Maurice.

“We’re going to look at our whole hockey team and our goaltending based on a style of game we play in front of them. I think there’s lot more offence for us in our game and we’re going to have to be really focused on how we play defensively.

“And then we’ll know if we can give our goalies a chance. But I’m comfortable with both of them.”

Calgary’s only goal came on a defensive lapse as Jets defenceman Grant Clitsome lost track of Flames forward David Jones behind the Jets net and he walked in alone and beat Pavelec with a backhand.

While Pavelec got no help from Clitsome on the play, he took the blame for not covering up the short side. “I just lost the puck for a second and they put it in. It was a bad goal,” said Pavelec.

Blemish

It was the lone blemish in an otherwise solid defensive performance by team that exhibited a style of play forward Blake Wheeler said the club is hoping to mimic night after night.

“They didn’t have a whole lot and that’s what we want our game to look like this season,” said Wheeler, who had Winnipeg’s first goal.

“You want to suffocate the other team and make them take chances in the third period. And play a lot of close games. We feel with our skating ability and our fitness level, we’re going to be able to wear teams down and kind of separate ourselves.”

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Pavelec was asked if his game is where he hoped it would be by now.

“We’ll see. We have a few days of practicing and it’s going to be different — it’s going to be more intense I think.

“But I think we’re going a good direction with how the training camp (went). We’ll see.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek