Game number eight of the epic ten game home stand sees the Colorado Avalanche back into Winnipeg to take on the Jets. This time, the Central division rivals hope to actually score a goal on Connor Hellebuyck.

The Jets messed around for about the first 48 minutes of their game against the Washington Capitals on Tuesday before deciding to come back from two goals down with 11 minutes left to go, tie things up and then win in overtime. Mark Scheifele was huge in that game as he had a pair of goals and an assist. To say the Jets have been cutting things a bit close lately would be a slight understatement as five of their last seven wins have been decided by a single goal with special teams – both good and bad – having a large say in how close those games have been. On the positive side, the Jets penalty kill has been very strong as they haven’t given up a goal while on the penalty kill in their last 11 times short handed. On the not as positive side is the Jets power play which has struggled a bit and has only had one goal in their last 15 man advantage attempts.

Colorado has been a bit up and down since their last visit to Winnipeg going 3-2-0. They’ve dispatched teams they should be taking care of with wins over Buffalo and Montreal, but struggled against Carolina and got pasted by the Blues a little over a week ago. They are still without their top scorer Nathan MacKinnon who is close to returning but didn’t make the one game road trip with the Avs to Winnipeg. Colorado on a good night can play some strong defense and they do have the league’s third best penalty kill at 83.3% but once a team gets a lead on them, Colorado typically struggles to climb back into games and win them, so scoring early will be key for Winnipeg.

This is the fourth and final meeting between the two teams. After having lost the first two games in Denver by a pair of 3-2 overtime losses, the Jets had a great outing at home against the Avs in a 3-0 win back in the 3rd of this month. Overall the Jets have had a fair amount of success against Colorado the last few seasons, having earned points in nine of their last ten games, posting a record of 6-1-3. Connor Hellebuyck has a career 3-1-2 mark against the Avs with a .938 save percentage.

Given the Jets run of success against the Avalanche over the last while and add to the fact that both the Predators and Wild lost their games last night, this could almost be considered a “must win” for the Jets to gain some points on their division rivals. The Jets have their top scorer back, the Avs are still missing theirs.. Jets win 5-2.