DENVER – Tonight, the Winnipeg Jets will try to do something only two teams have been able to do this National Hockey League season, and that’s find a way to earn two points at Ball Arena against the Colorado Avalanche (24-2-7).
So far, only the Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes have beat the Avalanche on their home ice, both by 5-4 shootout scores, in November. To date, no one has been able to beat the Avalanche in regulation in Colorado.
So that’s the challenge that lies ahead for the Jets (15-16-2), who are looking to even their record on a three-game road trip after a 1-0 loss to St. Louis in the opener on Wednesday.
The Jets pressured the Blues in the third to try and find the equalizer, but came up short.
“At the end of the day, it's find a way individually first. Come out and put your best foot forward and then, as a group, we need to be more consistent throughout the 60 minutes,” said head coach Scott Arniel after the loss to the Blues. “We have to do it more consistently, with more bodies and more people.”
The emphasis will be on a quality start when the puck drops in Colorado. In the three games leading up to the divisional tilt in St. Louis, Winnipeg’s penalty kill came up big with two kills in the opening frame to allow the Jets to build momentum. Against the Blues, they killed off one minor penalty but Winnipeg was outshot 11-6 in the period.
“It's one shift on, one shift off. It kind of seems like here, so it's been going on for seems like a long time here, almost a month,” said Kyle Connor, who enters the night with 299 career goals. “It's not the way we want to play, and it's just keep going on. So we got to find a way to get out of it.”
The frustrating part for the Jets is they certainly had the scoring chances to tie things up. Vladislav Namestnikov had a rush chance that resulted in a net front scramble where Winnipeg couldn’t beat Joel Hofer, and Gustav Nyquist nearly found Luke Schenn for a shorthanded marker, but the pass to the backdoor side didn’t connect.
“At the end of the day, we got ourselves in a one-goal game on the road and you have to find a way to score goals,” said Arniel. “You can’t win games without scoring goals. There are areas, we talk about defending and doing the right things. Well, offensively we’ve got to do the right things as well and we’ve got to do it more consistently.”
After arriving in Denver in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Jets opted for rest and recovery on Thursday. The focus is on being at their best when they take on Colorado in the first of four meetings between the two clubs this season.
With no practice on Thursday, morning skate will be the best indication of whether Arniel and the coaching staff elect to make any line-up changes for Friday’s game.
In 2024-25, Winnipeg won three of four games against Colorado, including an overtime win at Ball Arena. That came on January 22, 2025, and Colorado’s roster has changed significantly since then.
Between then and now, the Avalanche have acquired Martin Necas and Jack Drury from Carolina, as well as Victor Olofsson from the Vegas Golden Knights. In addition, captain Gabriel Landeskog has returned after missing almost three full seasons with a chronic knee injury stemming from a skate cut. He didn’t play a game between winning the Stanley Cup in 2022 and suiting up for Colorado’s American Hockey League affiliate – the Colorado Eagles – in April of 2025. The 33-year-old Landeskog then played in five games in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, scoring once and accumulating four points.
Friday’s game is just a one-game stop at home for Colorado, who earned a 5-3 win over the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday and will head out on the road to Minnesota for a clash with the Wild on Sunday, December 21.
Puck drop is set for 8 pm CT.
