Home Sweet Home

The Jets kick off a six game home stand tonight against the Chicago Blackhawks as we get a return of Paul Stastny and possibly Jacob Trouba back into the lineup!

The team was already beaten up and probably half thinking of the game and half thinking of that sweet flight home when the Nashville Predators blitzed them for three goals in the first period – two during maybe the most unfortunate looking Jets power play we’ll ever see – to take a 3-0 lead that the Jets could not really recover from. It was slightly encouraging though to see the Jets right the ship a bit and play the Predators somewhat even, out-shooting them in both of the final two periods of the game. They also found a goal from Kyle Connor which snapped a nine game goal-less drought for him. The Jets are still in desperate need of secondary scoring though beyond Patrik Laine and Nik Ehlers terrorizing opposing defenses. On the bright side, the Jets will be a bit healthier as Paul Stastny is set to be back in the lineup and this morning it was suggested that defenseman Jacob Trouba could be back as well, depending how he feels in the pre-game skate.

The Hawks have struggled this season and are on the verge of missing out of the playoffs for the first time in nine seasons. It’s been a difficult year as they’ve seen veteran stars age and regress right before our very eyes while other players have taken out by injuries. They are coming off a split of games against the Bruins where they were taken out with a flying clothesline both figuratively and literally in their first game in Boston, but rebounded with a steady effort in a 3-1 win back home in Chicago.

Last season the Jets absolutely dominated the regular season series against the Chicago Blackhawks with a 4-1-0 record, but it was the Hawks that were playoff bound while the Jets went golfing. This season, the Hawks have dominated so far with two wins in their first two meetings by a collective score of 7-2. Thus, this is the third meeting of the season and over the next couple of weeks we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this club with two more matches after tonight. Their last game was Janurary 12 which ended up being a 2-1 loss in Chicago.

Kyle Connor – Bryan Little – Blake Wheeler

Patrik Laine – Paul Stastny – Nikolaj Ehlers

Mathieu Perreault – Andrew Copp – Jack Roslovic

Brandon Tanev – Shawn Matthias – Joel Armia

Ben Chiarot – Dustin Byfuglien

Josh Morrissey – Tyler Myers

Joe Morrow – Tucker Poolman

Connor Hellebuyck – Eric Comrie

Brandon Saad – Jonathan Toews – Patrick Kane

Alex DeBrincat – Nick Schmaltz – John Hayden

Tomas Jurco – Artem Anisimov – Matthew Highmore

Patrik Sharp – David Kampf – Vince Hinostroza

Duncan Keith – Connor Murphy

Erik Gustafsson – Brent Seabrook

Jordan Oesterle – Jan Rutta

Anton Forsberg – J-F Berube

The Hawks have nothing to play for at this point. They haven’t been officially eliminated from anything yet, but they are just waiting for the sweet release of playoff death to wash over them which pretty much anyone outside of Chicago won’t be upset to see at all. The Jets meanwhile are kind of entrenched in second place in the division, well behind the Preds but well ahead of the Wild… They just need to get healthy, both injury wise and offense wise. They do both tonight as Jets win 5-2.