Jets eager to bounce back on four-game road trip

WINNIPEG - One day after a tough loss to the Ottawa Senators, Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck still felt a little bitter about how Saturday's game ended.
"I hate losing, I hate it with a passion. It was a blink of an eye and all off a sudden we were losing a game," Hellebuyck said after Sunday's 25-minute skate.
"For me, it's not going to weigh too much on me. I know what I'm going to do for my next game and the rest of the year - I'm going to bring it, and I'm going to battle as hard as I possibly can."
That seems to be the exact attitude the Jets have adopted in this scenario this season. While all three games were different in context (a miscue against Ottawa, a lost lead to the Edmonton Oilers, and a late power play goal against in Calgary) the Jets as a team have shown the ability to bounce back.

Winnipeg answered the first two tough losses - to Edmonton and Calgary - with victories the next time out.
It won't be easy, of course, as the team starts a four-game road trip on Monday in Edmonton - a team who has won three straight games, and four of their last five.
"There are some teams that you know you're going to get a good amount of shots," said Hellebuyck. "Edmonton is no fun for a goalie, they can score.
"Our goal for tomorrow is to stick with our game and play with a little bit of a boring style, then we can have some fun with it."
Head coach Paul Maurice believes the Jets (8-5-1) will be without Pierre-Luc Dubois for a second straight game on Monday. The forward has played two games with the Jets since coming out of quarantine, but remains day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
For the past two games against Ottawa, the Jets went with 11 forwards and seven defencemen. In the first game, it was because defenceman Tucker Poolman was playing his first game since Jan. 14 (he was on Covid Protocol after a positive test the next day). The second game was due to the Dubois injury.

Maurice likes the idea of 11 and seven. He feels it can create opportunities like it did on Mark Scheifele's goal against Ottawa on Saturday, where he played with fourth line wingers Kristian Vesalainen and Trevor Lewis for a shift - creating a mismatch that paid off in Winnipeg's favour.
"There is a chance you'll see that happen again," said Maurice. "On any given night, you have eight guys who are on your rehab report, sometimes it's more. They're dealing with something that you're not telling people about. Sometimes you're going to run 12 forwards because you have some question marks, or having 7 D really makes sense because you have two guys you're a little bit worried about in your line-up."
Prior to Sunday's flight to Edmonton though, the Jets ran four lines in line rushes as Nate Thompson - who hasn't played since Jan. 21 - and Jansen Harkins were both full participants in practice.
Copp-Scheifele-Wheeler
Connor-Stastny-Ehlers
Perreault-Lowry-Appleton
Vesalainen-Thompson-Lewis
Harkins
Morrissey-Poolman
Forbort-Pionk
Beaulieu-DeMelo
Stanley-Niku
Those lines show a bit of a shift in the top six, with Blake Wheeler and Nikolaj Ehlers flipping spots.
It's part of an ongoing experiment for Maurice.
"I'd love to be able to get to a point where I had more than one answer to different styles of game," said Maurice, adding these types of moves are possible because of the development in Ehlers, Connor, and Appleton's games this season. "Be able to go into Edmonton, move one piece around, now your lines look a little bit different because of the match-up."
Ehlers has scored in both meetings with the Oilers this season and also has three assists.

"They're obviously a really good team. They've been on a roll lately. Every single game in this division is different, I feel," said Ehlers. "They're a lot of fun and you have to adapt. Teams play different styles of hockey and I think we feel as a team that we're comfortable with playing our type of hockey, no matter who we play against."
The fact that Ehlers has had success against Edmonton doesn't surprise Maurice. When the two teams face off with one another, it's pits two teams with a wealth of speed and skill against each other.
That style fits the kind of game Ehlers likes to play.
"The guys that play like Nik would like to play against Connor McDavid. It's not because he's easy to play against, it's a style of game. Colorado plays that certain up-and-down, Tampa Bay has so much skill and speed," said Maurice.
"We played a game against last year, in Tampa, the expected goals for both teams were over four - which is a freak number. Most of them are sitting under two. It was chance, chance, chance. Goalies hate it, coaches hate it, but forwards love that stuff.
"There are teams that are way more fun to play against, that doesn't make them easier to beat. They're just more fun to play against."
Personal stats aside, the most fun way to start the road trip is with a win.
Ehlers - who turned 25 on Sunday - likes the path his team is on with one quarter of the schedule complete.
"We're getting better. We feel good. That last game sucked, obviously, but it's a matter of moving on," said Ehlers. "We have a lot of games left. We're moving in the right direction. We learned a lot from that loss, and we're going to keep learning every single game."