The Jets big line showed up huge for them on Friday night, in a game that had more offense in it than their three previous meetings combined.

The Jets won the scoring chance battle, the possession battle, and the special teams battle, and still almost didn’t come away with this game. Some shaky goaltending from Ondrej Pavelec paired with a strong third by Backstrom left this game up in the air until late, when it could have been over much earlier.

Blake Wheeler had a hell of a game. He wasn’t creating offense at the level he is expected to early on this year, despite the potential arguments that he was still playing pretty well overall. Lately though, he has been playing exceptionally and creating loads of offense. People who don’t like him likely never will, but the Blake Wheeler we have seen lately is a Blake Wheeler the Jets need.

Jacob Trouba was separated from an ailing Mark Stuart and once again we see his numbers jump back up. Is anyone really surprised by this?

The Kane – Scheifele – Frolik line may not have created a LOT offensively, but they spent a lot of time in the Minnesota end of the ice. This resulted in them preventing the Wild from really being able to do anything themselves offensively either, so I’ll take it. It was a solid defensive bounce back game following a rather pitiful showing against the Oilers.

I didn’t find it very surprising that the one penalty kill that saw James Wright off the ice (in the penalty box actually) resulted in an excellent kill and an Evander Kane goal. Maybe he isn’t such a PK guru after all?

Remember how everyone thought Evander Kane was bad with Jokinen and Setoguchi? Can we please just all admit that Chris Thorburn is a much worse player to be there please? Put Eric O’Dell back in the lineup and on that line already.

I loved all of Adam Pardy’s game against the Wild. He got beaten on a couple times, took a knee in the head and lost a skate blade, but was still an extremely effective player throughout the night. He should never be scratched for Mark Stuart. Ever.

The Jets are ready to play Colorado in about 15 minutes time. I’m actually going to be able to watch this game as it’s going on tonight, so hopefully my next posts will be up a heck of a lot sooner for this one.