TAMPA – A challenging four-game road trip begins tonight for the Winnipeg Jets as they head into Tampa Bay to take on the Lightning.
Three of the four teams that Winnipeg will face on this trek – Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Montreal – were playoff teams in 2025-26, and the fourth – the Florida Panthers – won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2024 and 2025.
It’s early in the 2026-27 campaign, but the importance of finding a way to a victory on this trip likely means more to the Jets dressing room than to the standings. Although two points would be most welcome, as it is on any game day.
Winnipeg (4-5-1) is 0-4-2 in their last six with five of those being decided by a goal. The next opportunity to snap that skid comes against a Lightning squad that hasn’t played since Saturday.
“Right now, in these last few here, we’ve been making mistakes that have been ending up in the back of our net,” said head coach Scott Arniel. “It’s about us making sure we do everything to play our part, to play to our best ability and compete like we need to compete. And we’ve got to be squeaky clean.”
The frustration was noticeable in the voices of the Jets after Tuesday’s 5-1 setback against the Florida Panthers. This trip will offer a chance for retribution against those Panthers on Friday night, but Winnipeg’s focus is solely on Tampa Bay.
“We’ve got to move on and be ready for a very strong Tampa team, and be ready right from the get-go,” said Dylan DeMelo. “We’ve got to try to learn from our mistakes here and see where we can be better at.”
One of the difficult things to process for the Jets is that heading into action on Thursday, they remain in the top half of the league in terms of fewest goals against. Prior to the game against Florida (where they gave up five, including three power play markers), they were as high as sixth in the National Hockey League.
While they’ll always want to improve that mark and focus on strong defensive play, it’s in the offensive end where things have dried up for the Jets. Over the past six, Winnipeg has scored 10 goals.
“The chances ended up 12-9 for us at five on five,” Arniel said, referencing Tuesday’s game. “Our fore check hemmed them in. We had some good retrievals, some good zone time. But you’ve got to capitalize. You’ve got to find a way. And we talked about the D and the shots from the top or the movement down low net-front, those types of things. There were some good things but not enough of it for 60 minutes.”
After shuffling his lines throughout most of the final 40 minutes against Florida, Arniel hinted after the game that tonight’s tilt in Tampa Bay could see even more of a shake-up.
“We’re trying to find some chemistry early on here, now we’re at 12 games. I’m going to start to work my way towards something,” he said. “We just have to find a way to build some lines, run with them and hopefully the chemistry builds off of that. That’s all the stuff as we have to get ourselves ready for Thursday. That’s D-partners, all those different scenarios that we have to look at to find some consistency.”
Check back later today for all the details from the morning skate line rushes.
The Jets and Lightning split last season’s two-game set with each team prevailing 4-1 on home ice. If Winnipeg wants to get this road trip off to a good start, they’ll have to do something no team in the NHL has done this season – beat Tampa Bay in their own building.
Five games have been held at Benchmark International Arena, with Tampa Bay earning wins in all five over Washington, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Seattle, and Vancouver. While there are some new faces on the Lightning roster (specifically John Carlson on the back end for example, who signed a two-year deal in the off-season), there are still the main stays in 2026 Vezina Trophy winner Andrei Vasilevskiy and 2026 Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov.
The challenge is right there in front of Winnipeg.
“We’ve got to find a way to right the ship here and get this thing going in the right direction,” said Adam Lowry. “We’ve got to find a way to get some things going in our favour. Just some consistency in our game, five-on-five, shorthanded, on the power play and go from there. That’s been a thing that’s missing.”
Puck drop is set for 6 pm CT.
