Winners of their last two games and eight of their last nine, the Winnipeg Jets go into Montreal tonight for the second of a road back-to-back set and come in looking to get into a bit of rarefied air as a win against the Habs would be number 50 on the season – a mark very few if anyone thought was possible back in October.

Let’s not have any grand illusions about last night’s game in Ottawa, it was kinda ugly. The Jets got sloppy at times and a game that was 3-0 for the good guys early got a bit out of hand with bad penalties and bad defense and it’s probably fortunate that the Jets had such a game against the woeful Ottawa Senators and got away with a 6-5 win. On the positive side, a handful of players finally broke out of their scoring slides as Blake Wheeler netted two goals and Matthieu Perreault scored which gave the Jets bench a bunch of gleeful expressions as it was Perreault’s first goal in the last 19 games and ended up being the eventual game winner.

The big news tonight is that we’ll see the much anticipated NHL debut of Finnish defenseman and seventh round pick Sami Niku who has been lighting up the AHL in his pro rookie season with 15 goals and 52 points in 71 games played. The Jets will also be welcoming back Steve Mason back in goal with the hopes of getting him some work and preparing him for backup duty in the Stanley Cup Playofffs. One other return will be Jack Roslovic who will get one more look on the third line before the playoffs start.

The Habs are 3-7-2 in their last 10 games played and have lost their last two games as they are simply going through the motions at this point and in fact a call has even been put out to some of the veteran players to have a bit of pride as they play this last week of games. Of course for other young players like Victor Mete, Noah Juulsen and Jacob de la Rose, the last handful of games have been about showing Montreal management something for next season.

The last game played between the Jets and Habs was a bit of a crazy back and forth affair that the Habs did deserve to win by a 5-4 score in overtime as they benefited from poor Jets defending and unload on Connor Hellebuyck to the tune of 50 shots on goal, but won in rather controversial fashion with a missed interference call that helped lead to the winning goal in overtime

Kyle Connor – Mark Scheifele – Blake Wheeler

Nikolaj Ehlers – Paul Stastny – Patrik Laine

Mathieu Perreault – Bryan Little – Jack Roslovic

Andrew Copp – Adam Lowry – Brandon Tanev

Josh Morrissey – Jacob Trouba

Joe Morrow – Dustin Byfuglien

Sami Niku – Tyler Myers

Steve Mason – Connor Hellebuyck

Paul Byron – Jonathan Drouin – Brendan Gallagher

Alex Galechenyuk – Jacob De La Rosa – Artturi Lehkonen

Nikita Scherbek – Logan Shaw – Kerby Rychel

Nicolas Deslauriers – Michael McCarron – Daniel Carr

Mike Reilly – Jeff Petry

Karl Alzner – Noah Juulsen

Jordie Benn – Brett Lernout

Carey Price – Antti Niemi

Another game against a team going nowhere after this Saturday and in a bit of a slide. The Jets will want to tighten up their defense, especially after last night and will have a chance to do so against a club sitting 30th in the league in goals for. Winnipeg wins 5-2.