ANAHEIM – If the Winnipeg Jets want to pick up their second win in a row on this three-game road trip, they’ll have to do something no team has managed to do quite yet:
Beat the Anaheim Ducks (31-23-3) on their nine-game home stand.
Perhaps that stat is a bit misleading. Tonight marks the fourth game of that nine-game stretch at Honda Center for the Ducks. They’ve put together victories over Vegas, Seattle, and Edmonton so far, but their 18-8-1 record on home ice shows their success has been consistent all season.
"We have to take away their speed. They’re a young team, they have a lot of skill and a lot of speed, make it hard on them as much as possible and don’t give them any easy offence," said Dylan DeMelo. "We understand this is a big game for us standings wise - they’re ahead of us and we’re trying to catch them. It’s going to be a hard fought battle. They’re a really solid team and they’re having a good year. We’re going to have to be real sharp tonight."
So that’s the challenge facing the Jets (23-26-8), who are coming off a 3-2 overtime win in Vancouver on Wednesday. They got some help on the out-of-town scoreboard but need to continue chipping away at the nine-point gap between them and a wildcard spot.
For his part, Jets head coach Scott Arniel liked what he saw from his group against the Canucks, especially when it comes to the systematic tweaks they worked on over a week of practice.
“We were trying to do some things to play faster and to put the opposition on their heels and I thought we did that,” said Arniel. “Our (offensive) zone time (Wednesday) was huge. If you do that, you’ve got the opposition on their heels.”
Every line had a piece of that win, with two forward line combinations in particular leading the way. Natural Stat Trick calculated that Mark Scheifele’s line (with Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi) and Adam Lowry’s trio (with Cole Perfetti and Alex Iafallo) had a combined 36-16 edge in five-on-five shot attempts and racked up a 7-3 advantage in high-danger chances as well.
Perfetti, who notched the overtime winner to cap off a night with four shots on goal, feels the group is building in the right direction.
“(We’re) creating lots and when you are creating in that quantity, the puck is eventually going to go in the net,” Perfetti said. “I thought tonight was a good first game back from the break.”
Honda Center is not only the building that Perfetti made his National Hockey League debut in back on October 13, 2021, it’s also where he played his first regular season game of the 2025-26 campaign after battling an ankle injury late in the preseason.
“He got into some fast-moving water when he came back. I don’t think his ankle was really ever 100 per cent,” said Arniel on Wednesday morning. “Now he looks good, he looks more comfortable and he looks like the (Perfetti) that we saw a lot of last year. Confidence is a big thing and he has it. Hopefully, he continues that and just build off of what he did prior to the break.”
The Jets didn't have any changes to their skaters in terms of line combinations at the morning skate, with Connor Hellebuyck making his return to the net after winning a gold medal at the 2026 Olympics.
"Obviously we’re very fortunate to see what he does on a nightly basis," said DeMelo. "To do that on the world stage is extraordinary. So we’re happy to have him back and are looking forward to this final stretch here with him in the pipes and hopefully feeling really good after a pretty good game."
