Matthias says team must learn from past mistakes

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This article was published 05/10/2017 (2899 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Shawn Matthias admits it’s painful to think about what could have been.

The Winnipeg Jets forward had three quality chances in Wednesday’s first period against the Toronto Maple Leafs when it was still scoreless. If he could have buried one or two early…

“Obviously I wish I had,” he said with a sigh following Thursday’s practice. “But I’m not going to dwell on it. It’s the first game of the year. I worked extremely hard this year in my off-season. So I’m very confident that I’m going to have a great season here and that I know I’m going to score goals. I know I’m going to have my best season to date.”

Matthias said laying an egg in the home opener was both puzzling and frustrating.

“We want to have a better performance than that,” he said. “You can’t just say it’s one game and forget about it. You gotta learn from your mistakes, you gotta improve. It’s important to come here and have a practice where you work hard. But, at the same time, you don’t want to dwell on it. There is a lot of hockey left. We’re a very good team in here. We’re gong to be a good team this year. We just have to learn from our mistakes.”

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It’s been said there’s no place like home. But head coach Paul Maurice said on Thursday he actually enjoys hitting the road early in the season.

“The style of game we have to play, that any team has to play to be successful, sometimes is easier to convince them to play or be comfortable to play on the road. You’re not worried about the shot clock and you don’t feel like you have to have the lead halfway through the warm-up,” Maurice said.

For what it’s worth, home teams lost three of the four games played on opening night Wednesday.

Winnipeg returns to practice this morning before departing for Calgary, where they’ll meet the Flames on Saturday night. That should provide another tough challenge, as the Flames lost 3-0 in their season opener against the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday and will be looking to rebound. The Jets will then take on Connor McDavid and the Oilers on Monday before wrapping up the trip in Vancouver against the Canucks next Thursday.

“I think it’ll be good for us. We had camp in Winnipeg, so we haven’t had any time to go for any team dinners or spend some time together at the hotels. So I think it’ll be good for us in that perspective,” Matthias said. “It’ll be a good test for us, that road trip. Three good teams, three Canadian teams. We got our wake-up call (Wednesday) night. I’d expect us to have a very good road trip here.”

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Veteran centre Matt Hendricks will join the Jets on their upcoming trip but is likely still at least a week away from seeing any game action, Maurice confirmed Thursday.

Hendricks went down after blocking a couple shots in a Sept. 27 pre-season game against the Ottawa Senators. He’s been placed on injured reserve but is eligible to come off at any time. Once he does, that would require a subsequent roster move to be made to keep the Jets at the 23-man maximum.

The Jets are currently carrying eight defencemen, with Ben Chiarot and Tucker Poolman as the extras. The team would no doubt like to get Poolman in some game action in his first year of pro, so a trip to the Manitoba Moose and some big minutes on their blue-line may soon be in the cards.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @mikemcintyrewpg