GAMEDAY: Jets at Canadiens

MONTREAL -If the Winnipeg Jets could bottle up the opening period from Thursday and apply it to tonight's rematch with the Montreal Canadiens, they'd do it in a heartbeat.
"Those first 20 minutes are always so important," said Pierre-Luc Dubois. "Scoring the first goal, not just statistically speaking but also for confidence, changes a lot. It changes the game. It opens it up a bit more and you're not chasing it as much."
The Jets (24-13-3) scored three times in the first en route to a 4-2 victory, but that win - Winnipeg's 13th on the road this season, the second most in the National Hockey League - still didn't come easily.

Montreal (17-11-9) poured on the pressure in the middle frame, scoring once and outshooting the Jets 11-6.
It was Montreal's 47th second period goal this season and it's also the part of the game that the Canadiens have put up the majority of their offence.
That's top of mind for the Jets tonight.
"You want to play a full 60 minutes. You have to strive for that. The reality is you'll have ups and downs throughout the game," said Dubois. "You have to limit their chances when you're in a down period. We have (Connor Hellebuyck) back there, and (Laurent Brossoit), that can help us out of trouble.
"As a team, the only way to get out of those lows is to not panic, keep going, sometimes just play simple, get the puck out, get on the forecheck, get on the body. It's cliche, but it works, and it gets you back in the game at times."

Speaking of Hellebuyck, he'll get the start in goal for the Jets tonight after his 36-save performance on Thursday night.
In front of him, the Jets will go with the same skaters and line combinations that finished off the game two nights ago.
Connor-Scheifele-Copp
Stastny-Dubois-Ehlers
Perreault-Lowry-Appleton
Harkins-Thompson-Lewis
Morrissey-Poolman
Forbort-Pionk
Stanley-DeMelo
Those forward lines were the product of head coach Paul Maurice shuffling things up to start the third period Thursday night.
"Whoever you're playing with, you're surrounded with talent," said Dubois. "I started with Copper - he's a different player with Nikky - but I hadn't necessarily played with him before but I'd seen him play enough that I thought we could help each other. As a centre, you want to support your wingers. When we switched to Nikky, I was a bit more familiar."
The line changes helped the Jets out shoot Montreal 12-9 in the final period on Thursday.
Historically, Maurice has felt that the Canadiens were a team that the Jets struggled with stylistically.
Even with five wins in seven games against Montreal this season, Maurice has felt the games have been tight.
"They are too good a team that you're not going to just dominate them in a game," said Maurice, who feels the Canadiens play an 'Eastern Conference' style of game that maybe isn't as physical, but is still difficult to play against.
"They've got two or three guys in the corner and that puck's got to move really quickly," he said. "It's a different attack, a different style, if you will, of offence, that's more effective and you've got to be able to flip back and forth to do them. So your game isn't going to look the same on each night."
That puck pressure from the Canadiens can make it difficult for defencemen like Neal Pionk to make clean passes to exit the zone.
"They may not necessarily hit you, but they might steal a pass, they might deflect a pass," said Pionk. "Even if they deflect it the tiniest bit where the pucks starts rolling, or bounces off our stick, that disrupts a lot of stuff. They're one of the better teams we've played this year as far as their stick detail goes."

Tonight's tilt will be the second straight game that the Jets will be without captain Blake Wheeler in the line-up. Winnipeg's power play went 0-for-3 on Thursday as the top unit with Paul Stastny, Mark Scheifele, Josh Morrissey, and Kyle Connor worked to adapt to having Mason Appleton with them instead of Wheeler.
"I thought we were forcing some things, jamming some things and we just lost possession and had to break it out again," said Maurice. "That might be the part of the power play, in some ways, that you miss the most is that Wheeler and Scheifele come up the right side of the ice with so much speed, it really forces the other teams to make a decision on who they're covering. When Blake is not in the lineup, they don't have those same decisions that they have to make."
Still, the Jets have shown to be a resilient bunch this season. That's why they're locked in a battle with the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs for the top three seeds in the North Division.
Winnipeg knows they'll get a test tonight from the Canadiens, who are fourth in the North - eight points back of the Jets with three games in hand.
"I think the biggest impact was they looked like they were coming off a back to back and then the rest of the game looked like the Montreal Canadiens," Maurice said of Thursday's tilt. "It will be a much tighter game in here and they'll be ready to go right from the start."
-- Mitchell Clinton, WinnipegJets.com
Game Notes
The Winnipeg Jets continue a five-game road trip with their second consecutive game against Montreal.
Winnipeg is 5-2-0 in their past seven games in Montreal.
Winnipeg is 13-for-14 (92.9%) on the penalty kill in their past four games and have not surrendered a goal on the penalty kill in eight of their past 12 games.
The Jets are 6-2-1 in their past nine games.
With Mason Appleton reaching 20 points on Thursday, the Jets have nine players with 20 points this season, which is tied for second in the NHL.
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