NEW YORK – A three-game road trip comes to a close this afternoon as the Winnipeg Jets take on the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
The Eastern Conference trip has produced one out of a possible four points so far, so the importance of finding a win today against the Rangers takes on an even bigger importance.
The Jets (28-29-12) sit five points back of Nashville for the final wildcard in the Western Conference heading into Sunday, and are looking to bounce back from a 5-4 shootout loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Head coach Scott Arniel would like to see Sunday’s tilt with the Rangers get off to a better start than Winnipeg had against Pittsburgh, where they gave up two goals in the opening 2:02 of the first period.
“These afternoon games, sometimes it’s whoever wakes up first gets the advantage,” he said. “I liked our resilience, I liked the way we battled back. I thought the last 10 minutes of the first we were the better team. We took over the game after that.”
Natural Stat Trick’s metrics gave the Jets a 10-9 edge in high-danger chances at five-on-five in the game, with the shot attempts also leaning toward Winnipeg by a 57-45 margin. But ultimately, it’s the numbers on the scoreboard that matter.
Neal Pionk was one of the Jets to put a number up on that scoreboard, notching his third goal of the season after returning to the line-up for the first time since January 13. The 30-year-old missed 23 games, but played 22:30 on Saturday and felt good in his return.
“It’s nice to make a contribution, but it’s still the same feeling, we lost,” said Pionk. “We’re still in it, we’re still fighting. I wanted nothing more than to get back in.”
Pionk spent 101 games of his National Hockey League career with the Rangers and has since put up five assists in 10 games against his former club. Injury kept him from playing in the first meeting of the season between the two clubs back on March 12 (which ended at 6-3 in favour of the Rangers).
After that tilt at Canada Life Centre, the Rangers went on to beat the Minnesota Wild two nights later. Since then, they’ve dropped three in a row to Los Angeles, New Jersey, and Columbus, being outscored 16-7 in the process.
New York (28-33-8) has a stellar road record of 19-16-2, but things haven’t gone as well on home ice. At Madison Square Garden, their record is 9-17-6 (the second worst record in the league ahead of only Vancouver) and have been outscored 106-71.
But all those numbers don’t matter much to Winnipeg. The only one that does matter is two – as in, the two points they hope to earn to close out the road trip.
Puck drop is set for 11 am CT.
ICE CHIPS
Dylan Samberg left the overtime period on Saturday after taking a puck in the face on the penalty kill. He skated to the dressing room under his own power with Arniel giving the update that the defenceman seemed to avoid the worst possible news.
“He’s okay,” said Arniel. “It looked more like a cut than anything. He seems to be okay. So he should be good for now.”
His status for Sunday is unclear.
