Give Jets’ depleted ‘D’ an ‘A’

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This article was published 17/12/2014 (3940 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the first night without Jacob Trouba, the depleted Winnipeg Jets’ defensive corps did not collapse like a house of cards.

Some of Jets Nation seemed to have that fear but it was nowhere to be found in the MTS Centre, where the Jets dismantled the Buffalo Sabres 5-1 Tuesday night.

“It’s big,” said defenceman Paul Postma, who moved into Trouba’s spot as Mark Stuart’s partner for Tuesday’s game, and likely going forward. “The first game you play together you want to have a lot of success. We played pretty well tonight all around. It’s a great starting point for us.”

Starting, because it was revealed by head coach Paul Maurice earlier in the day Trouba will be out of the lineup until at least February with an unspecified upper-body injury.

The team, he said, decided to shut down the second-year defenceman because his ailment was getting worse, not better.

Postma benefitted by the promotion, playing 17:34 with Stuart, his second-highest total of the season.

“It was a fun game to play,” Postma said. “I think we gelled pretty quickly. I’ve played with Stewy in the past and I’m used to how he plays and what to expect from him.

“We played a pretty good shutdown role tonight and we were able to get some offensive chances as well. As a team, we played great tonight, with some help from our fourth line. Scheifs (Mark Scheifele), Fro (Michael Frolik) and Hally’s (Matt Halischuk’s) line was going as well.

“We got into a little trouble there at the start with some penalties, and other than that, that’s a pretty solid game by us.”

Maurice was able to manage minutes with the defense corps Tuesday. Dustin Byfuglien, continuing to be paired with rookie Ben Chiarot, was not overplayed. Byfuglien had 23:32, the lowest total of his re-slotting back to the blue-line, while Chiarot skated 18:21, also his lowest since being recalled seven games ago.

“I think the guys that have been here a while are obviously a lot more comfortable with each other,” Chiarot said. “But I’d say there was a good comfort level with all the D.

“You know what, I feel better and better every game. The kind of icetime I’m getting really helps, them showing confidence in me. But like I said, on the back half of this game, I felt more and more of my game coming out of my shell of just moving it up and just taking care of my own end.

“I’m more comfortable with the puck, making some plays offensively. That’s what I want to do, get better and better as each game goes on as my confidence grows.”

Maurice gave the impression after the game everything went pretty much like it should have, even with Trouba’s absence compounding the fact Toby Enstrom and Zach Bogosian were already on the injured list.

“The forwards did a pretty good job of helping the D out,” he said of the victory. “I thought the D played off each other pretty well and moved the puck efficiently. We were able to spend the right amount of time in the offensive zone, which takes the pressure off your D.”

The coach did note the Sabres may have had the tougher assignment, coming to play in Winnipeg after skating to a shootout win at home Monday night against Ottawa in a rescheduled game.

“It’s tough on back-to-back nights,” Maurice said. “We went into Buffalo on back-to-back nights and it was a tough game. We have to. That’s our game.

“There’s nothing that really changes in what we’re trying to do. We make sure we give our back end enough support on our breakouts and for the most part we were pretty good with that.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

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