Longest Road Trip of the Season Starts Tonight

Riding high on a 5 game points streak, the Winnipeg Jets hit the ice in Philadelphia tonight to mark the beginning of the season’s longest road trip. This may well prove to be a very important trip as these Jets sit in second place in the Western Conference (yes, you read that right) and the upcoming five games will give us a good sense of whether or not this is for real.

With games against the Flyers, Bruins, and Hurricanes this week and then facing Central division foes Minnesota and Nashville before coming home to take on the Preds again, that much-discussed American Thanksgiving deadline will pass and the Jets should be in good position above that playoff line. 

In case you’ve been living under a rock recently,  let me inform you that the Jets have the league’s leading goal scorer in 18 year old sensation Patrik Laine (12 goals) and the league’s leading point scorer in Mark Schiefele (21 points). Both men are in the top 15 in the league in shooting percentage as well (Laine 10th at 22.5% and Schiefele tied for 15th at 22.2%, as per hockey-reference.com). Those lights-out shooting percentages may come into play as teh Flyers are under-performing in net with Michael Neuvirth on IR and Steve Mason sporting a .884SV% in 12 appearances.

UPDATE: Looks like the Jets catch a fairly big break on this one:

Boston is 10-6-0 and have won four of their last five and seven of their last nine, losing only to the Rangers and the Habs. The Bruins beat the Jets 4-1 in the home-opener a month ago on Oct 17 and Winnipeg would love to even the season series up in the second game of this road trip. Tukka Rask will have a lot to say about that, however, as he’s sporting a .945SV% and has only lost once this season. He stopped 34 of the 35 shots on him in Winnipeg at the start of the season, but that was a different squad that he faced. Expected in the lineup Saturday that weren’t around to face the Bruins the first time: Nic Petan, Andrew Copp, and Jacob Trouba. Connor Hellebuyck may be looking to exact a bit of revenge, too, should he get the nod against the Bruins; he let up three goals on 24 shots.

Another rematch from early in the season sees the Jets taking on the Hurricanes, whom they opened the season against. That was a wild one, as the Jets scored three in the third and Mark Schiefele put home the winner in OT. This game will mark the end of the gruelling 17 games in 27 nights, as the Jets will FINALLY get two days off in a row. They may even get a practice in! The schedule will get a tiny bit more favourable as far as games per week go, but the matchups won’t get any easier as the Central division battles will start heating up.

The Wild beat the Jets 4-3 in Minnesota in the second game of the year. The game was not as close as the score shows, as Mark Schiefele scored with 39 seconds left in a game that Minnesota outshot Winnipeg 31-17. The Wild are three points back of the Jets in the standings, but have played three less games. This one will be important in keeping that edge on the Wild, who will have those games in hand thoughout most of the rest of the season.

This one marks the end of the road trip, but is also the first half of a home-and-home with the Predators. The first (and second) meeting(s) between these two will be the first time Winnipeg faces their new-look division rivals, who traded Shea Weber to Montreal for PK Subban over the summer. These meetings will also shake up the Central Division standings, where Nashville currently trails the Jets by 5 points with a 6-6-3 record. They also have 3 games in hand on the Jets, who, at the end of this trip, will have the ugliest chunk of the schedule behind them.

If the Jets can get through this trip at 3-2 or 2-2-1, they will be in excellent shape as they start getting healthy bodies back. We can’t forget that Bryan Little and Matthieu Perreault and Tyler Myers are still not in the lineup and there’s really no argument that the Jets can be a better team with those veterans healthy.