GAMEDAY: Jets at Panthers

SUNRISE -The Winnipeg Jets are aware that there are no moral victories this time of season, but they've been proud of the efforts they've put forward in the last two contests.
Despite that, they've only picked up one of four possible points. So, tonight against the Florida Panthers, the goal is to like how their game looks, but also finish the night in the win column.
The loss to Minnesota is a template for how head coach Rick Bowness would like the offence to look.
"I thought our net presence was better, I thought driving the net was better, we put more pucks to the net," he said. "We just missed a couple tap-in empty-netters. They were in our skates instead of our stick. When things are going your way, those rebounds come to your stick. When it's not going your way, they're in your skates. It's that fine of a line. The most important thing is putting pucks in there and keep going to the net."

The contest is the first on a three-game road trip for the Jets (36-26-3), who for the second straight game, will face a team playing the back half of a back-to-back set.
The Panthers (32-27-6) hosted the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday night at FLA Live Arena, earning a 4-3 overtime win on defenceman Brandon Montour's 12th goal of the season, 2:43 into the three-on-three.
It was a game that Bowness and his staff watched closely.
"The score could've been a lot worse. Chicago's goalie was outstanding. They spent an awful lot of time in the Chicago zone," said Bowness. "Our breakouts are going to be huge. We're going to have to get the puck out of our zone as quick as we can. They do a really good job cycling the puck, hanging onto the puck, making plays. So that's going to be huge for us."
Breaking that cycle takes a team effort, something that defenceman Dylan DeMelo says begins with anticipation.
"When teams get the cycle going, it's easy for guys to lock on and go man-on-man and you get the one-on-one battles to happen," said DeMelo. "You're looking for some contact, maybe get a second guy in there to support, try and two-on-one them in areas where you can and not get exploited if they make a play. It's about being aggressive, being smart in our anticipation, and being quick to close."

Winnipeg is currently four points up on Calgary for the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference, while the Panthers are two points out of a playoff spot, trailing Pittsburgh for the second wildcard slot in the East.
Desperation will be on full display as the Panthers look for their third straight victory, while the Jets try to get back in the win column after an overtime loss to San Jose and a regulation defeat against Minnesota.
"They're two points out and we're one point out of third. That's how we look at this," said Bowness. "We know the importance of it. There are a lot of parts of this game, clearly we'll have to win some games on the road and we don't have a great road record. It's an important game for us."
As was expected at the start of the trip, Pierre-Luc Dubois won't play in the road trip opener. The forward didn't make the trip due to an upper-body injury, and the hope is he'll be able to join the team for the tilt with the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday.
Without Dubois, Winnipeg's projected line-up looks like this, with Connor Hellebuyck getting the start:
Connor-Scheifele-Niederreiter
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Wheeler
Barron-Lowry-Appleton
Maenalanen-Stenlund-Gustafsson
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-Schmidt

The Jets have had some help on the out-of-town scoreboard the last couple nights, with Nashville losing to Arizona on Thursday and Calgary falling to Anaheim 3-1 on Friday.
Still, the Jets would prefer to control their own destiny, without checking the scores at night.
"It's all about us. We'll game plan for whoever we're playing, but we have to worry about our own game and do what we need to do to get wins," said DeMelo. "We've been really close the last few games. We can't control how other teams, what the results will be. We have to focus on us and what we can control. That's how we play and hopefully we get a win tonight."
Puck drop is set for 6 pm CT.
-- Mitchell Clinton, WinnipegJets.com
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