JNGD.S8.G81 Flight Plan: Jets’ penultimate match sees the Avs at Pepsi Center

5 years ago

The last time the Jets saw Colorado was February 20th, the Avalanche were slowly putting an embarrassing two month slump behind them by handing hefty losses to both the Golden Knights and the Jets within the same week. But if we thought we had it rough back in February, the Avalanche of today are certainly a force of nature, knocking down nearly all other opponents in their path, going 7-1-2 in their last 10. However, the Avalanche haven’t secured their position in the playoffs just yet, they’re shy one point and they’re hoping to collect that from the Jets.

Winnipeg Jets (46-30-4 / 1st Central)
@
Colorado Avalanche (37-29-14 / 5th Central)

April 4, 2019 – Puck drop: 8:00 PM CST
Pepsi Center – Denver, CO
TV: TSN3 – Radio: TSN 1290

Jets player to watch

#9 – Andrew Copp – Center

Despite being in his fifth season with the Winnipeg Jets, center Andrew Copp flies mostly under the radar to hockey fans. Copp is one of the few Jets who consistently leave it all out there on the ice, doubly so since the Jet’s untimely slump. In a season shortened due to a concussion, the Michigan native is just three shy of his previous season’s point total and has already exceeded his career high goals scored.

Last Jets game

Do we have to talk about it? The Minnesota Wild have a historically low win rate on home ice, but that wasn’t enough of a tilt for Winnipeg to take a much needed win on Tuesday. While you could try to blame the game on Eric Comrie, an AHL goaltender trying to play an NHLers game, the team should be faulted for not stepping up to play their hearts out in front of him and shielding him from the onslaught of shots on net, especially in the first period where Comrie was visibly nervous. The Jets’ lone goal was scored by Jacob Trouba who scored his 7th of the season.

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Jets Notebook

With Jacob Trouba’s goal last night, Blake Wheeler became the franchise leader for number of assists in a season
The Jets are 9-5-7 at Pepsi Center
Nik Ehlers needs one more goal to hit his 20 goal milestone for the year

Avalanche player to watch

#31 – Philipp Grubauer – Goaltender

The last two weeks have been great for Grubauer who is arguably the hottest goaltender in the NHL right now, helping his team to six of their seven wins within the last 10 games. Grubauer was sent to the Avs over the summer in exchange for a draft pick and assistance with clearing Brooks Orpik’s $5.5 million cap hit. This season has seen plenty of ups and downs for the 27 year old goaltender as he has been in a non-stop battle for the top goaltending spot with Semyon Varlamov, but three shutouts and several outstanding games later he has all but secured his position as the starter once Varlamov’s contract expires at the end of the year.

Avalanche last game

Edmonton was just the latest team to be taken out by the Avalanche, losing 6-2 despite the first period seeing them up 2-0 with goals from Milan Lucic and Darnell Nurse. It wasn’t until the second period that Colorado kicked it into gear and it all started with Nathan MacKinnon netting his 40th of the season. This unleashed Pepsi Center and saw 3 more unanswered goals from Tyson Barrie, Alexander Kerfoot and Colin Wilson, ending the period with a score of 4-2 in favor of Colorado. By the third period, the Avs had definitely slowed down but weren’t quite done yet, registering another pair of goals from Kerfoot and Sven Andrighetto.

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Avalanche notebook

Tyson Barrie is the franchise leader for goals, assists and points as a defenseman. Additionally, his career high 58 points has broken the record of most points within a season by a defenseman.
Avs prospect Cale Makar has been lighting up the NCAA all season and is taking his team UMass Minutemen to the Frozen Four for the first time in the program’s history.
With Ottawa finishing last in the league this year, the draft pick that Colorado received in the Matt Duchene trade is guaranteed to be in the top 4, with an 18% chance of being the first overall.

Player ratings courtesy Corsica.Hockey

Be sure to check out our Twitter feed for any late mid-day updates to the game lineups!
You can also get up to the minute lineup combos for the Jets
including power play and penalty kill lines by checking out our line combo page.

Colorado Avalanche Lines

Forwards

Alexander Kerfoot – Nathan MacKinnon – JT Compher

Gabriel Landeskog – Carl Soderberg -Colin Wilson

Matthew Nieto – Tyson Jost – Matt Calvert

Gabriel Bourque – Derick Brassard – Sven Andrighetto

Defence

Samuel Girard – Erik Johnson

Ian Cole – Tyson Barrie

Nikita Zadorov – Patrik Nemeth

Goalies

Philipp Grubauer – Semyon Varlamov

Winnipeg Jets Lines

Forwards

Kyle Connor – Mark Scheifele – Blake Wheeler

Bryan Little – Kevin Hayes – Patrik Laine

Mathieu Perreault – Adam Lowry – Nikolaj Ehlers

Par Lindholm – Andrew Copp – Jack Roslovic

Defence

Nathan Beaulieu – Jacob Trouba

Ben Chiarot – Dustin Byfuglien

Dmitry Kulikov – Tyler Myers