Jets will clash with Golden Knights
Posted April 14, 2023 12:48 pm.
The Winnipeg Jets will clash with the Vegas Golden Knights in another first-round series after the Golden Knights wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.
Winnipeg secured the Western Conference’s final playoff spot on Tuesday when they defeated the Minnesota Wild. The Jets lost all three of their games against the Golden Knights this season. The Jets also lost the only other playoff meeting between these two clubs in the 2018 Western Conference Final, a series that only lasted five games.
Game 1 of this series will be on Tuesday in Vegas with Game 2 following on Thursday.
The Western Conference's No. 1-seeded @GoldenKnights and @NHLJets will begin their #StanleyCup Playoffs against one another, marking their second postseason meeting (also 2018 CF).#NHLStats: https://t.co/LvEPnyEK2x pic.twitter.com/htjD0s680o
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) April 14, 2023
‘Confident’ Jets ready for playoffs after promising finish to regular season
As the eighth seed in the Western Conference, it’s natural to wonder if the Winnipeg Jets are going to embrace the idea of being an underdog when the Stanley Cup playoffs next week.
Jets head coach Rick Bowness is fond of saying he isn’t a big fan of labels, so it’s no surprise the group doesn’t have much interest in adding one after reaching the end of the regular season with a hard-fought 4-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday at Ball Arena.
“I mean, we’re a confident group. We think we can beat anybody so I don’t think we’re looking at it like hey, we just squeaked in, we’re happy,” said Jets left-winger Kyle Connor, who joined Adam Lowry, Neal Pionk and Brenden Dillon as the four players on the roster to appear in all 82 games this season. “We’re here to win some series.”
Part of the reason the Jets aren’t lacking confidence, despite some rocky moments after the calendar flipped to 2023, is that they finished the season with authority, going 7-4 down the stretch to finish with a record of 46-32-5.
Since the Jets spent so much of the first half of the year and were still battling for top spot in the Western Conference, it’s tough to view them as a sizeable underdog, no matter who they play.
But they won’t be a prohibitive favourite either.
Again, none of that will really matter come next week – outside of the important lessons that can be applied about battling through adversity.
“It seems like a long time ago at this point,” said Bowness, whose eighth-seeded Dallas Stars pushed the top-seeded Calgary Flames to Game 7 last spring. “We had to fight to get in and we’re going to have to take that mentality into the first round of the playoffs.”
While some teams around the league could afford to go into cruise control mode, the Jets had to fend off a late charge from the Calgary Flames and Nashville Predators and that’s allowed them to be a bit more battle-tested when Game 1 arrives on Tuesday against the Vegas Golden Knights.
“I don’t know if battle-tested, maybe, is the right word. Just you’re not coming into it relaxed. You’re somewhat prepared in what to expect,” said Connor, who finished second on the Jets in goals with 31 and led the team in points with 80. “Every game from here on out, that next game is going to be even bigger. That’s kind of what we were facing in the regular season so we can draw from that experience, what we did, and hopefully use that to our advantage.”
Dillon sees the value in having to scratch and claw for points down the stretch as they prepare to face the top seed in the West.
“We’ve basically been playing playoff hockey for I feel like the last four or five weeks now with the kind of position we put ourselves in towards the end of the year. We’re ready as we’ll ever be, and I guess by the end of tonight we’ll know where we’re going,” said Dillon. “A lot of these past couple games we’ve been playing, whether it’s different identities of teams…our lineup, we had a couple guys banged up earlier in the year but we were starting to get healthy and get some line combinations and chemistry going together.
“A lot of one-goal games that we’ve been comfortable in. And obviously just been feeling good about our game the last seven to 10 games.”
The Jets had reason to feel good about the effort that was put forth in what was essentially a meaningless game for them when it came to the standings against a team still challenging for top spot in the Central Division.
That allowed the Jets to rest guys like Mark Scheifele, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Nikolaj Ehlers, Blake Wheeler, Josh Morrissey, Nate Schmdit and goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who still served as the backup to David Rittich, who made his first start since March 14 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Perhaps most importantly, the Jets came out of the game healthy, though Vladislav Namestnikov had a scare when he crashed into the post while diving to catch Lars Eller on a breakaway.
Eller was awarded a penalty shot (but was stopped), while Namestnikov was shaken off but eventually made his way off the ice under his own power but didn’t miss a shift.
Jets centre Kevin Stenlund left the game in the third period for precautionary measures, but Bowness expects him to be fine.
Before he departed the game, Stenlund scored a shorthanded marker, converting a pass from Morgan Barron.
Axel Jonsson-Fjallby also scored for the Jets as he suited up in an NHL game for the first time since Mar. 4.
“And that’s a credit to the guys in the lineup tonight. Everybody really battled,” said Dillon. “They scored a power-play goal there, a lucky one on their third one and that’s kind of the game right there. We want to be a workmanlike mentality here going into the playoffs. We’ve got a lot of skill in our lineup but we know when we work hard, we’re usually rewarded for it.”
The next time the Jets drop the puck, the stakes will be a whole lot higher but the potential to go on a run is something that every player dreams about.
