Practice Notebook - Mar. 10, 2023

CORAL SPRINGS - Friday's 45-minute Winnipeg Jets practice was full of yelling and stick banging, and while in some sessions that primarily comes from head coach Rick Bowness - mostly harping on specific details in drills - the vocal nature of this session was from the players themselves.
Certainly, the Jets would've preferred to have come out on top in each of their last two games - and their play would have been worthy of that result - but that's not how things worked out.
"No one is happy that we lost three of those points when we played so well, clearly," said Bowness. "But the most important thing is feel good about how the team game was, and the team games was very good for both of those games."
So they took that mood into the practice. After all, when things are difficult, that's when Blake Wheeler believes teams find out what they're really about.

"Great teams are forged in fire," he said. "So it's a great opportunity for us to stick together and deal with some adversity."

Brenden Dillon, who spent the practice paired with Neal Pionk in an early indication of what the pairings could look like against the Florida Panthers on Saturday, feels the adversity has come from small mistakes in games. One night, he says, the offence is firing but the team isn't defending well, then on the next night, the five-on-five is there but special teams aren't.
"When you're going through a stretch like this, it's almost the process of learning how to win again. We have to play a full 60 minutes," Dillon said. "We've got it on the right track these last couple, but we have to put it all together. There are no moral victories at this time of year."
Natural Stat Trick shows that the Jets have been dominant in their last two games. At five-on-five, Winnipeg has more shot attempts than their opponent (114-71) and high-danger chances (31-16).
If they put up another similar performance against the Panthers on Saturday, there is a good chance they'll put themselves in a position to earn a much-needed two points.
"When you're playing your best hockey, you don't feel like you're forcing it or trying hard," said Wheeler. "You're just kind of able to go out and play. It's kind of a tight-rope act, but I think for the veteran guys on the team, it's a matter of giving a lot of confidence and enthusiasm in the dressing room."

The only changes to the Jets line rushes came on the blue line. As previously mentioned, Dillon - who had been paired with Dylan DeMelo - was back with Pionk, which caused a bit of a shuffling in Winnipeg's top four:
Connor-Scheifele-Niederreiter
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Wheeler
Barron-Lowry-Appleton
Maenalanen-Stenlund-Gustafsson
Kuhlman-Gagner-Jonsson-Fjallby
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-Schmidt
Samberg-Capobianco
The majority of the practice was spent doing five-on-five work, specifically the neutral zone and how to get through it cleanly against a team like Florida.
Bowness and his staff will be watching the Panthers take on the Chicago Blackhawks tonight, but prior video work of other recent games was used to help shape today's practice.
Dillon said the neutral zone will be a key area of focus against the three teams Winnipeg faces on this trip.
"When you have teams like us that have that high powered offence, teams try to negate that," he said. "Especially these next couple of games, Florida, Tampa Bay, and Carolina, these are all great teams that can defend well. Taking away, and kind of using our strengths in that sense of getting through the neutral zone clean, getting into the offensive zone where we can use our skill, those are going to be crucial for us in some tough buildings."

The final part of the skate was spent working on the power play, which has come up empty in the last two games on nine attempts. The talent level is there, it's just a matter of translating what gets worked on in practice to game situations.
"You watch them today, the puck was snapped around, they were moving it, and they were scoring goals. We get in the games and we slow it down," said Bowness. "They can do it. They do it in practice, and we're pressuring the heck out of them, and they were moving the puck. We get in the games and we slow it up too much. We hang onto it and we're not moving to support each other. So when I say it's up to them, they have to do the things we're telling them to do in practice in a game."
With under 20 games to go in the regular season, every team is playing for something, so the intensity level - no matter the opponent - is at an all-time high.
"It's just a lot of opportunity ahead of you," said Wheeler. "It's exciting to be in the conversation for the playoffs and potentially having a chance to go on a run."