The Stars make their first of two visits to Winnipeg tonight to take on the Jets. While it’s still early in the season and it doesn’t mean a whole lot of anything quite yet, the winner of tonight’s contest skips all alone into second place in the Central division.

Somehow, someway they managed to defeat the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night by a 2-1 score. At the risk of sounding like a broken record yet again, it wasn’t the prettiest win and if we’re being honest, the Jets bacon in this one was saved by Connor Hellebuyck as it has been pretty much in every game. After a solid first period where they took a 1-0 lead, the Jets were badly outshot in the second period by a 10-6 margin and grossly out-shot in the third period 12-2. It’s very unrealistic to expect any hockey team to come away with that with a victory, but the Jets did.

The Stars have to be a bit road weary at this point as tonight is the fifth and final stop on their five-game road trip that has taken them through Western Canada and Colorado. They stumbled a bit with a pair of losses to the Oilers and Avalanche, but have since rebounded nicely with wins against Calgary and Vancouver – the win over the Canucks being a tightly fought 2-1 OT win with Alex Radulov netting the game winner.

This is the first of four meetings between the two clubs. Last season the Jets did very well for themselves against Dallas going 4-1, helped along by two separate Patrick Laine hat tricks on November 8 and again on February 2. The Jets scored 4 or more goals against the Stars in each of those four wins as well. Since the move to Winnipeg in 2011, the Jets are 11-8-1 against the Stars.

 

 

The Jets need a better effort when it comes to dictating play, especially later in the game when they may be leading. The Stars will be looking to end their road trip on a positive note and with a record above .500 so it won’t be easy. Expect another nail biter as the Jets squeak out a 3-2 win.