A Look Ahead: Home for the Wings and Rangers Before Heading to Alberta

The Jets have rallied after bottoming out on their season-long five-game road-trip by winning four of five and winning their last two against Central Division opponents. They look to continue building as they attempt to get into late December fully rest up over the Christmas break. The Jets have four games this week with two at home against Eastern Conference opponents, before a weekend back-to-back in Alberta. Let’s take a look at what’s ahead.

The last time these two teams met Kevin Chevyldayoff took Kurt Overhardt into a stairwell at Joe Louis Arena and told him how it was going to be. Shortly thereafter, Jacob Trouba made his return to the Jets’ blueline. It was also a 5-3 victory for the Jets and they’ll look to try and sweep the season series back on home ice. The Red Wings come into this one sitting in fifth in the Atlantic with a record of 12-11-3 after beating the Islanders in overtime last night. They’re just as banged up as the Jets with names like Justin Abdelkader, Darren Helm, and Jimmy Howard currently sitting on IR. Howard is approaching a return, but it doesn’t look like he’ll be ready on Tuesday, leaving Petr Mrazek (.907SV%, 2-0-2 in his last four starts) or Jared Coreau (1 career start) between the pipes. 

The Rangers sit at 17-8-1 and 35 points, good enough for the second highest total in the NHL (behind Montreal and tied with Chicago), as they head out on a three game ‘road trip’. The quotation marks are out as the first of those games is in Brooklyn against the Islanders and involves little to no travel. New York has gone win-loss-win-loss-win over the last couple of weeks and look to string a couple together after beating Carolina 4-2 on Saturday night. This game will end the season series between the Jets and Rangers and the Jets are looking for a split after losing 5-2 at MSG back in early November, when Connor Hellebuyck got yanked in the second. The Rangers will be missing Pavel Buchnevich (back) and Mika Zibanejad, who will be out six-to-eight weeks with a broken bone in his leg. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 24 of 26 when these two teams last met and has a .914SV% in 20 appearances this season. His backup, Antti Raanta, has put up a .931 in his eight appearances, so neither option looks great for the Jets. Young wingers Kevin Hayes and JT Miller lead the team with 19 points apiece, but scoring is spread out for the Rangers, as they have 7 players with 16 points or more.

As of Monday morning, the Flames and Jets have identical records at 13-13-2, after the Flames thumped Anaheim 8-3 last night to win their third in a row. That game marked the return of Johnny Gaudreau, who missed only 10 games after being expected to miss up to six weeks. Johnny Hockey scored just over two minutes into his return and added an assist, to bring him up to 13 points on the season. 20-year-old Sam Bennett and ex-Jet Michael Frolik lead the team with 15 points. In net, Chad Johnson appears to have wrestled the starting job away from free-agent pickup Brian Elliott. Johnson, 30, has settled in nicely for the Flames, his sixth team in six years. In In 15 appearances this season, he is 10-4-1 with a .928SV%. The Flames head out on a quick two game road trip through Dallas and Arizona before heading home to take on the Jets on Saturday. 

The Jets will head to Edmonton on Sunday to take on the Oilers in the second half of the Alberta back-to-back. The Jets are 0-2 against the Oil this season, having been shutout 3-0 outdoors and blown out indoors (6-3). This will be the first meeting of the season in Edmonton, and here’s hoping that changes the Jets’ fortunes. Edmonton is currently 14-10-3, which puts them in a tie for first in the Pacific. They are led, obviously, by Connor McDavid and his 34 points, which lead the NHL. Cam Talbot is 13-9-2 on the year, with a .916SV%, including a 2-0 record against the Jets.