GAMEDAY: Jets vs Avalanche

WINNIPEG - The Central Division is only getting tighter as the month of February, and there is nowhere the Winnipeg Jets would rather be than on home ice.
Six of their next seven games take place at Canada Life Centre, where they have the best home record in the Western Conference at 20-8-0.
That stretch begins Friday night against the Colorado Avalanche - a team that is third in the Central - and have gained ground on the second place Jets by going 11-2-2 in their last 15.
"It's a huge opportunity," said Adam Lowry. "Especially with the teams that we are playing, Colorado, got the Islanders, we've got L.A., a home-and-home with Edmonton, San Jose - and I know they're struggling - and Minnesota, right? So all teams we're fighting with and jockeying with for position."
The Jets flew home from New York on Thursday, one day after dropping the finale of a four-game road trip by a score of 2-1 to the Islanders. The group collected just one win on the week-long trip for two of eight possible points.

Each game on the trip seemed to have its own theme. In Columbus, the Jets special teams let them down, as they went 1-for-7 on the power play in a 3-1 loss. The next stop came in New Jersey, where the Jets held a 2-1 lead through 40 minutes, only to have a couple puck management decisions haunt them, with the Devils scoring three times in the third.

Connor Hellebuyck's 50-save performance against the New York Rangers the next night helped produce a 4-1 win, but despite playing well against the Islanders in the finale, a couple of posts and some depth scoring from the Islanders kept the Jets from putting two wins in a row.
Lowry knows the Jets need results, but how they get those results matters as they try to get their game in peak form in the stretch drive.
"Obviously, you want to get the result and dropping three out of four on the road is never a good thing," he said. "You can't give up 50 shots like we did against the Rangers and expect to win every night. We know there is an opportunity to win the division and challenge for the conference. Our goal is to finish as high as we can and get home ice as long as we can in the playoffs."
The Avalanche will be without reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar on Friday, as the all-star defenceman remains in concussion protocol following a collision with St. Louis Blues forward Alexei Toropchenko. He joins defenceman Erik Johnson, Darren Helm, Pavel Francouz, and Gabriel Landeskog on the Colorado injured list.

Head coach Rick Bowness had an update on Cole Perfetti after the morning skate, citing that the forward will be out a
minimum of eight weeks with an upper-body injury,
one that is unrelated to the upper-body injury that ended his 2021-22 campaign.
With Perfetti out, Bowness will continue to shuffle his lines to find the perfect mix.
"You have no choice," he said. "There are line shuffles that you're forced to make, and that's one of them. You have to move guys in and out, see if it works, give it a chance, and go from there. It's coaching in the NHL today. You never know when that injury is going to come and you have to be ready to adjust."
Bowness and Lowry both spoke after Wednesday's setback about the need for the Jets to get some secondary scoring to turn some of these tight losses into victories.
Lowry, one of the team's assistant captains, pointed to himself and his line as one that is generating chances, but needs to find a way to light the lamp.
"Sometimes you've got to go back and watch some clips from earlier in the year just to see what you were doing and try to get back to it," said Lowry. "Coming down the stretch here, we know the games are going to be tight. The margin for error is so slim."
In those situations, Bowness is a big believer in a "greasy goal" opening the floodgates. He'd like to see the Jets continue to simplify their game, get some pucks to the net, and create some chaos.
"They work hard. They generate things. They can't pass up any opportunities to shoot the puck," he said. "They've got to play through it. That's what you do. You've got to put more pucks to the net."
Morgan Barron - who hasn't found the back of the net since doing so in consecutive games on January 6 and 8 - remains confident that the floodgates will open.
"To me, it's almost about being dumb about it and just continuing to play and continuing to create chances," Barron said. "It's easy to get frustrated out there, for all of us, when things are going like this. But I have full confidence in myself, (Lowry), and (Karson Kuhlman) - or whoever is playing with us - that eventually one of them is going to go in."
Perhaps the boost provided by the home crowd will be enough to turn the tide, get a puck to bounce right instead of left, or help create the opening needed to snap out of an offensive skid.
Even with that crowd, Lowry knows the Jets work ethic needs to be front and centre against an Avalanche team playing with a lot of confidence.
"We've got a great team that's right on our heels in Colorado so it's another important game for us," said Lowry. "It's important we get back and use this homestand coming up to give ourselves that opportunity to keep climbing in the standings."
Despite the adversity, Bowness' confidence in his team isn't shaken one bit.
They're a dominant team in their own building, and own a 14-4-0 record against the Central, with two of those wins coming against Colorado earlier this season.
"I believe in this team. We'll play ourselves through this," said Bowness. "We've got the most important game of the year coming home on Friday night and that's the focal point right now."
Puck drop is set for 7 pm CT.
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