GAMEDAY: Ducks at Jets

WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Jets have taken advantage of their long homestand so far and will hope to push their win streak to four when they host the Anaheim Ducks at Canada Life Centre.

The Jets beat Vancouver 3-2 in overtime on Saturday to push their points streak to six games (4-0-2) and are now only five points back of the Seattle Kraken for the final wild card spot in the west.

"Yeah. I mean, we've been on the outside looking in all year. We have a tough stretch of hockey,” said Morgan Barron.

“It's nice to have a good homestand here but we've got to keep stacking these games together and keep continuing to play the way that we know is going to make us successful."

The interesting part is that many people were calling the Jets sellers at the deadline with the departure of Logan Stanley, Luke Schenn and Tanner Pearson. Dylan DeMelo says the team isn’t getting overly excited and they understand there is a lot of work to do.

“We gained points or gained some traction really in a quick amount of time. We've got to keep getting those wins, because it can go the other way,” said DeMelo.

“It's really bunched up. It's tight. That's our goal. It's great to be able to close that gap, but we've still got a lot of work to do.”

Winnipeg will get another huge test in the form of the Anaheim Ducks who arrive in the Manitoba capital after a 4-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Sunday night. Anaheim has taken the first two games of the season series including a 5-4 overtime win where the Jets led 3-1 at the start of the third period.

“For me, you look at their roster and the way they’re constructed, and you want to talk about a fast team, they play with a ton of speed, they have a ton of skill,” said Barron.

“Just being committed to staying above, if you look at the success we had last year and how we defended, we kind of built our offence from that. It’s going to be one of those games. The second time around in Anaheim, we probably did a little better job of that.” 

Make sure to watch the Jets pregame show “The Check In” with Sara Orlesky and Jamie Thomas at 12:30 CT.

The Jets had a hard time winning one goal games for the majority of the season, but they have won two of those already on this homestand, overtime wins over Chicago and Vancouver.

“It's hard to say. Maybe during that stretch where we weren't winning, we were kind of shooting ourselves in the foot. Maybe we've just been staying with our game a little bit and executing at the right time,” said DeMelo.

“It's hard to say to really pinpoint one thing. But it just feels like we've been on our toes, assertive. We haven't sat back, just going at teams. And maybe that's a reflection of why we're winning those one, two-goal games.”

The winning goal in the game against the Canucks came from DeMelo’s defence partner Josh Morrissey, who not only played his first game in almost a month but became the Jets all-time defenceman scoring leader passing Dustin Byfuglien.

“Not surprised at all. He does that on a nightly basis for us and on a year-to-year basis. We definitely missed him. A lot of guys had to step up to fill that void, and even then, I don't think we can fully fill it, for the impact he does for our team and in our room,” said DeMelo.

“So, it was really nice to have him back and definitely made a lot of guys' jobs easier out there. And to see him get rewarded with the franchise record, I think that's an amazing accomplishment. I don't know if that's going to get touched.”

The win over Vancouver also marked the 719th game of Morrissey’s career, tying Toby Enstrom for the most games played by a defenceman in franchise history. Morrissey is now set to become both the franchise’s all-time defenceman points and games played leader in consecutive games when he plays in his 720th career game on Tuesday night. 

On Monday, it was announced that Mark Scheifele was named the NHL’s First Star of the Week. Last week, Scheifele recorded three goals and five assists in three games, including two game-winning goals… Scheifele is on pace to set new career-highs this season in both assists (50) and points (87), sitting only two assists shy of tying the former. With the honour, Scheifele became the first Jet to be named one of the NHL’s Stars of the Week this season.

Puck drop is scheduled for 7:30 CT.