JGD 8: *Insert Bad “Wild” Pun Here* As Jets Host Minnesota

Tonight’s contest is the division rivalry that feels like it should be a much more heated match up than it is right now as the Minnesota Wild visit the MTS Centre for their first regular season meeting with the Winnipeg Jets.

The Wild “won” the seven game regular season series in 2014-15 going 5-1-1 versus the Jets. Of course the Jets managed to go 4-2-1 against the Wild which only makes sense when you realize no one in the NHL really loses any more, some teams just don’t win as much as others.

The Wild looked their suffocatingly best last night in a 3-0 shutout of the Anaheim Ducks as they only gave up 15 shots against for the entire game.

Zach Parise is leading the offensive charge for the Wild with 6 goals and 8 points in 7 games played. Ryan Suter as always leads things for them on the blueline as he’s in the league’s top ten in assists, points (both are at 6) and average time on ice (25:44) amongst all defensemen,

Also something to look out for are the power plays of both teams which is clipping along at an even 25% for the Jets and 21.7 for the Wild. Interestingly enough, the Wild PK has struggled a bit (76.2%) early in the season so special teams could be what decides the contest.

No changes expected on forward as Drew Stafford had missed practice on Saturday but it was listed as a maintenance day. The Jets hope that all three top lines continue to roll as each of them contributed towards the offense on Friday night.

No changes on defense either. Friday, 13 of the Jets 36 shots against Ben Bishop came from defensemen and that is a trend the team would love to see continue. The real key for the Jets is to play a more structured game than they did especially in the second period against Tampa as they were at times guilty of chasing the puck.

Pavs is back in and while he didn’t exactly have a poor game on Friday, the save percentage in that game was south of the .900 mark.

Watch out for the second line of the Wild. Mikko Koivu always seems to be a factor in games against the Jets as he has 4 goals and 14 points in 17 games played against the Thrashers/Jets franchise. His linemates have also put up some strong posession numbers early on this season.

Beyond the already mentioned Suter, the Wild defense is a physical and hard-to-play-against group that likely won’t light things up offensively but as seen on Saturday night against Anaheim are very effective in shutting down opposing forwards.

As Dubnyk played last night, the Wild will go with Darcy Kuemper in goal tonight. It will be his second start (and appearance) of the season, his first start resulted in an overtime loss against the LA Kings where he played very well stopping 35 of 27 shots against.

Game Day Prediction: We’re going to take more encouragement than discouragement from that the OT loss on Friday and say that the Jets will play a much tighter game defensively while still getting contributions from the top three lines. Jets win 3-2.

Obvious Prediction: Nik Ehlers will do something to amaze us all… but end up ringing a shot off the post after doing said amazing thing.

Not-So Obvious Prediction: He’s come agonizingly close the last couple of games, so tonight should be the night Andrew Copp finally gets his first NHL goal… Only they’ll award it to Chris Thorburn instead because it will have gone off his skate.