The Jets hit the road on Wednesday, looking for their sixth win inside the Central Division as they head to the Mile High City to face the Colorado Avalanche.

The Jets rebounded from being shutout for the first time this season, thrashing the Minnesota Wild 7-2 on Monday night.  After falling behind 2-0 in the first period, the Jets scored seven unanswered goals from seven different players.  Connor Hellebuyck made 17 saves in the game, running his record on the season to 13-2-2, with a 2.31 GAA and a .927 save percentage.

The Avalanche have points in four of their last six games since returning from the NHL Global Series against the Senators, but lost their second straight game on Saturday, losing 3-2 at home to the Calgary Flames in the first game of a five-game homestand. Mikko Rantanen and Nikita Zadorov scored goals, and Jonathan Bernier gave up three goals on 28 shots.  On Monday, the Avalanche found out that forward Gabriel Landeskog will be suspended for four games for a cross check to the head of Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk on Saturday.  Landeskog has nine goals and 17 points in 22 games this season.

This is the first of four regular-season meetings between these Central Division rivals. The Jets went 3-1-1 in the five regular season matchups last season but were only 1-1-1 in the 3 meetings in Colorado.  Connor Hellebuyck started two of the five meetings, going 2-0-0 with a 1.00 GAA and a .961 SV%.  Nikolaj Ehlers was the leading scorer, with seven points (3 G, 4 A) in the five meetings.

The one area that the Jets struggled in the 5 regular season matchups last year was in the faceoff dot.  The Jets won just 39.6% of the faceoffs in the head to head matchups last year, including a season-worst 29.5% in the February 4 meeting in Colorado.  This year, the Avalanche, now without Matt Duchene in their lineup, are last in the NHL with a 43.4% faceoff win percentage, including three centremen at 41.0% or lower (Soderberg at 41.0%, MacKinnon at 40.1%, and Kerfoot at 36.4%).  If the Jets centremen can continue to perform the way they have in the last month (51.3% FO%, 12th in the NHL), they should have a majority of the possession, and be able to dominate the game the way they did against Minnesota on Monday.

Eric Comrie

 

Jonathan Bernier

On Monday, the Jets proved that the shutout on Saturday in San Jose was the exception and not the norm.  Although Colorado has been playing better of late, the absence of Landeskog from their lineup tonight will hurt them. Jets win 4-0.