GAMEDAY: Jets at Ducks

A road-heavy month of March continues tonight for the Winnipeg Jets, who will take on the Anaheim Ducks (23-38-10) to open a three-game road trip through California.
A win tonight not only gives the Jets a season series sweep of the Ducks, but also puts another valuable two points in the standings with just 10 games to go in the regular season.
Heading into action on Thursday night, Winnipeg holds a four-point lead over Calgary for the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference, with Nashville five points back.
"At this time of year when there's only 10 games left, the pressure will be on until the day we clinch that spot," said Jets head coach Rick Bowness.
While there are some areas they plan to fix up, the Jets (40-29-3), liked the final result of a 2-1 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday. Winnipeg was the first team to beat Arizona in regulation in an eight-game stretch (they were 6-0-2 coming into Canada Life Centre), but Anaheim isn't on a similar run.

The Ducks are in the middle of an eight-game home stand, but have gone 1-3-1 so far, and currently sit seventh in the Pacific Division.
Still, Anaheim is a team with weapons at their disposal, including Trevor Zegras, who leads the Ducks with 58 points in 71 games, and scored against the Jets back in November.
It's almost a similar situation to the game against St. Louis back on Sunday. An opponent that's outside of the playoff race may sound like one with nothing to play for, but it's quite the opposite.
"There are a lot of guys that are trying to fight for a job who want to be in the line-up next year. It's a show case for themselves," said Nino Niederreiter. "It's almost harder playing teams like that because they're up for it, they're fighting for jobs like I said. We're fighting or a playoff spot."
The Jets won't make any changes to their line-up tonight from the one that defeated Arizona.

That includes keeping Kyle Capobianco in the defensive rotation for the second straight game.
Capobianco has played 12 games for the Jets this season, and this will mark the first time he's suited up in consecutive games since December 27, 2022.
"When we're struggling to score goals, we want our D a little more involved and Capo is able to do that for us," said Bowness. "Capo made some really good plays last game. He moved the puck, had some really good opportunities and we're wanting to score some goals. Right now, tonight, we will go with that."
Connor Hellebuyck will get the start in goal, with the skaters in front of him looking like this:
Ehlers-Scheifele-Wheeler
Connor-Dubois-Niederreiter
Namestnikov-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Stenlund-Maenalanen
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Capobianco-Schmidt
One thing the Jets may want to take from previous match-ups with the Ducks is the success they had on the man advantage.

Winnipeg has converted on two of six opportunities in the season series so far, and with Anaheim's penalty kill ranked 29th in the NHL at just over 79 percent, tonight could be an opportunity for the Jets power play to snap a 0-for-19 run.
"(Just) simplify. The whole power play that's the biggest thing," said Niederreiter, who scored Winnipeg's last power play goal on March 12 against Tampa Bay. "We're trying to go through the seam, try to make fancy passes, which is hard to do. Right now, when things are not going in the way they should, you have to simplify, start with getting shots to the net and go from there."
And if the power play opens up, it could provide a boost to a Jets team searching for a bit of offence as of late.
Two goals was enough to get the job done against Arizona, but they wouldn't mind lighting the lamp a few more times.
After all, Mark Scheifele's next goal sets a new career high, and Kyle Connor sits just three back of his fifth 30-goal season.
"He's a pro. He knows what he has to do to be successful," Bowness said of Connor. "He's going to come through very, very soon here."

But most importantly, the Jets want to win games playing to the identity that gives them success. It was there for 40 minutes against Arizona.
Now, they want to see it for 60 minutes, night in and night out.
"We know we have to win to get in," said Niederreiter. "We can't hope for teams to lose or whatever teams are going to do. We control our own destiny."
Puck drop is set for 9 pm CT.
-- Mitchell Clinton, WinnipegJets.com
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