WINNIPEG – Calvin Pickard made 41 saves to help the Edmonton Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets 3-1 at Canada Life Centre. Adam Lowry scored the only goal for the Jets who outshot the Oilers 42-21 and are now 15-18-4. Connor Hellebuyck made 18 saves. Winnipeg will head out on the road for three games beginning with the Red Wings in Detroit on Wednesday.
GETTING CLOSER
Since the Jets came out of the Christmas break, they were hoping to look more like the team that finished first overall last season. Looking back at the six periods (minus overtime on Saturday night) they have defended well and played some of their best hockey of the season. Winnipeg held Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl off the scoresheet for the majority of the night until McDavid recorded an assist on Zach Hyman’s empty netter at 18:37.
"Well, I mean, when you put up 40 shots in a game, you're looking to get more than one goal," said Dylan Samberg.
"And obviously their goalie played a heck of a game, but I thought we had another great start to the first period there, and that's kind of the goal that we're trying to get to."
POWER PLAY DID EVERYTHING BUT SCORE
Coming into tonight’s game the Jets wanted to make sure to stay out of the penalty box and keep the NHL’s best power play off the ice. They did that in the opening frame and had a couple power plays of their own and had three quality chances that Calvin Pickard stopped, and the first period ended 0-0. Max Jones scored at the eight-minute mark to give the Oilers the lead, 35 seconds after that the Jets got their third power play of the night, fired four shots at Pickard with no luck. Scott Arniel felt the Jets had eight great scoring chances with the man advantage. Former Jet Jack Roslovic made it 2-0 on the first Oiler power play of the night at 12:49 and that turned out to be the game winning goal.
"Again, it's us finishing. The finishing aspect. Our power play spent almost the whole time in their end of the rink on our three power plays," said Scott Arniel.
"We had eight quality scoring chances on our power play. All these things have to... When they all seem to... When everything seems to be working, we're scoring three, four, five goals a game and you're not talking about this stuff."
800 GAMES FOR THE CAPTAIN
Adam Lowry beacme the fourth player to play 800 games for the Jets/Thrashers, joining Mark Scheifele (915), Blake Wheeler (897), and Bryan Little (843). All three of the other players recorded at least one point in their 800th game for the franchise and with the Jets by two goals in the third, Lowry made it 4-for-4 with this goal to pull Winnipeg within one.
"You know what, it was just nice to pull us back in the game. It had been a while," said Lowry.
"It's no secret secondary scoring has really been an issue for us. So I felt like it helped bring the building to life. But I would trade that for a win."
