Winnipeg Jets in Europe - October 7, 2012

Three games in Europe today for the Jets, one in Ukraine, one in Russia and one in Germany. Jets on the ice included Alexei Ponikarovsky, Evander Kane, Tim Stapleton and the legendary Brett Festerling

• Ponikarovsky's club HC Donbass Donetsk hosted Vityaz Chekhov, the club of Andrei Markov. Donbass poured the shots on, but Ivan Kasutin turned aside 38 of 39 shots as Vityaz was eke out the 2-1 victory. Poni would post a -1 rating with 3 shots in 16:32 of ice time.
• It would seem Evander Kane needs to work on his defensive game, as he would manage to earn a -3 rating in just 11:03 worth of ice time in this game, as Spartak Moscow downed Dinamo Minsk 4-1. Pekka Rinne played like Ondrej Pavelec, allowing 4 goals on 28 shots. Tim Stapleton would net the lone goal for Minsk, his 6th of the year. He finished with 2 PIMs and 2 shots in 17:56 worth of ice time.
• Brett Festerling and the Thomas Sabo ice Tigers of Nürnberg battled back to force overtime against Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg (awesome name), before Wolfsburg would claim the victory in the extra period. Uncle Festerling would join club million with a stat sheet reading 1 game played and nothing but zeros behind that.

Winnipeg Jets in Europe - October 6, 2012

3 games of note on the Jets Euro ticker on Saturday, with Arturs Kulda, Mark Flood and Nik Antropov hitting the ice in KHL action

• Kulda and Sibir Novosibirsk would defeat Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg by a score of 3-2, despite the efforts of goalie Chris Holt who turned aside 38 of 41 shots on goal. In the end it was his counterpart Jeff Glass who picked up the win after stopping 28 of 30. Kulda would get his second assist of the year on a third period goal by Alexei Kopeikin. He finished the game with 5 shots on goal and a +1 rating in 26:36 worth of ice time.
• Mark Flood and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl were supposed to play against Andrew Ladd and Avangard Omsk Region, but they had to settle for just Avangard, as Ladd is all sorts of preggers back in Winnipeg. They didn't need the Jets captain anyway, as they handled Lokomotiv by a 5-2 margin. Flood would pick up 1 shot on goal in 15:48 of ice time.
• Winnipegger Nigel Dawes would pick up 2 goals, including the winner via penalty shot, in a 3-1 Barys Astana win over Atlant Moscow Region. Nik Antropov did not play, and my inability to read Russian is severely hampering my abilities to find out why. If anyone knows, feel free to comment below.

Winnipeg Jets Games in Europe - October 5, 2012

Only one game of note on this day instead of two, as Ondrej Pavelec rode the pine for Bílí Tygři Liberec in their 3-2 loss. Instead the spotlight fell on Brett Festerling to produce, and he finally did!

• Festerling's Thomas Sabo Ice Tigers of Nürnberg fought an exciting game against Eisbären Berlin. For those of you keeping track at home (and I know you are) Eisbären means Polar Bears in German.
  The game would go back and forth, as Berlin and Nürnberg traded goals before Mads Christensen would score the winner with 36 seconds left on the clock, as Berlin held on for a 6-5 win.
  Festerling would pick up his first point of the campaign with an assist on a Steven Reinprecht goal that had tied the game at 5 late in the third. Festerling also picked up a couple of minor penalties: one for roughing in the second, and one for "incorrect body attack" in the first. That was a new one for me. Uncle Festerling finished with a +1 rating and 1 shot on goal.

Winnipeg Jets in Europe - October 4, 2012

There were two games of note to the Winnipeg Jets played in Europe today, both in the KHL.

• First off we had Sibir Novosibirsk hosting Metallurg Magnitogorsk which is coached by Paul Maurice and has names such as Evgeni Malkin, Sergei Gonchar, Oleg Tverdovsky (former Jet 1.0), Cal O`Reilly and Nikolai Kulemin on the roster.
  
  On Sibir...there are 4 guys with the initials A.K. and not a single one of them took number 47. Embarassing.
  
  Speaking of embarassing, someone should tell Magnitogorsk Coach Maurice that having a gameplan other than "pass it to Malkin" would likely score more goals and be more entertaining. The Russian had 9 shots on goal, and none of them went in. Luckily for Malkin, 2 goals did manage to go in compared to the 1 for Sibir and that would leave Magnitogorsk the victors in this game. Despite being on the losing side, Arturs Kulda would end up with a shot and a +1 rating in the game.

• In the next game of note, Evander Kane, Tim Stapleton and the rest of Dinamo Minsk failed to find the back of the net in a game against visiting Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod, who would score 3 on the night. The biggest impact a Jet had on the scoreboard was Evander Kane getting tossed from the game when he got himself a 10 minute misconduct to go along with a 2 minute cross checking penalty. Kane would finish with 5 shots on goal to go along with those 12 penalty minutes in 16:29 of ice time. Timmy Staples would end up with a -1 rating and 3 shots on goal in 15:59

Winnipeg Jets in Europe - October 3, 2012

Only one game to discuss on the day, which comes to us from Donetsk, Ukraine where HC Donbass took on Dinamo Riga, the lone Latvian representative in the KHL. The game would be rather close until quite late on when Donbass would score with 6:21 left in the game and then with 4:28 left to win this game by a 4-2 margin, good for 3 points in the standings.
Alexei Ponikarovsky managed 18:08 of ice time in which he managed 2 shots and a trip to the sin bin for high sticking. He was not on the ice for any of the 6 goals in this match which is both good and bad. Seeing as his team won, I would think he'd say it's mostly good.

Winnipeg Jets in Europe - October 2, 2012

3 games in 3 leagues on this fine Tuesday, and in one of those leagues 3 Jets played. If only today was the 3rd instead of the 2nd.

Oh well...

• The big game of the day involving 3 players came to us from Belarus, where Evander Kane made his Dinamo Minsk debut as he and teammate Tim Stapleton faced off against Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, Mark Flood's team.
  The game featured two decent goalies in Pekka Rinne for Minsk and Semyon Varlamov for Yaroslavl, but both goalies would give up early goals as just 7:21 into the game it was 2-1 for Lokomotiv and that's actually the way the scoring would stay for the duration of the game.
  Kane would get himself in a minor kerfuffle in the second, as he and Yury Petrov would get matching roughing penalties. His other stats are currently unofficial, but it seems he registered second line minutes and 6 shots on net.
  Stapleton played exactly 17 minutes and managed one shot.
  Flood had a -1 rating to go with one shoot in 19:21 of ice time.
  
• Over in Germany, Brett Festerling and his Nürnberg Ice Tigers squad thumped Düsseldorf by a 6-2 margin. Despite the offensive explosion, and 3 shots on net for Uncle Fester, he still remains without a point on the season. I would almost be concerned for this if not for...
• Ondrej Pavelec. Ondrej Pavelec is starting to make me question what Vesa Toskala is up to, if Andrew Raycroft still plays, and if Dan Cloutier might give up his goaltending consulting position with the Canucks.
  MAYDAY MAYDAY...this Jet is going down. I could talk about alarm bells, but wow the lifeboats are already gone. In case you're wondering what I'm getting at, Pavs gave up his 5th loss of the season, a 6-4 loss. Luckily(?) the coaches of Liberec saw fit to yank Pavs from the game after he allowed his fourth goal of the game on the 14th shot he faced with 5:53 gone in the second period. At that point it was 4-0 for HC Slavia Praha.
  This is bad. There's no other way to describe it. This is not the type of play you expect from a starting goaltender in the NHL playing in the Czech Extraliga. Wade Flaherty needs to jump on a plane and go visit this guy, because the wheels on the bus are falling off, off, off.

Winnipeg Jets in Europe - October 1, 2012

October kicked off with two games in the KHL, as Arturs Kulda and Sibir Novosibirsk were in action, as was Nik Antropov with the Barys Astana Tigers.

• Kulda and Sibir would visit Avangard Omsk region, in a game that would be decided by overtime. The home side would open the scoring with a powerplay tally halfway through the first frame, but Sibir would respond with a goal of their on on the powerplay in the middle of the second period. Kulda would pick up his first assist of the season on that goal after his point shot was redirected in. However it was not to be for Kulda or Sibir, as in overtime Alexander Nesterov came in against Kulda and his defense partner Alexander Kutuzov and dropped a between the legs pass to Andrei Taratukhin, who capitalized on the screen provided by Kulda and Nesterov to score with one second left in OT, sending the home crowd into a delirium. Kulda finsihed with 1 assist, a -1 rating and 1 shot on goal in 27:22 of ice time.
  
• Antropov and Barys Astana would host Amur Khabarovsk, and it would be a second period powerplay goal by Winnipegger Nigel Dawes that would prove to be the game winning goal in a 3-1 contest. Antropov was on the ice for the only goal against, as Barys' penalty kill attempt failed late in the first period. Antro finished with 1 shot on goal in 16:23 worth of ice time.

Winnipeg Jets in Europe - October 1-7 Edition

Tracking the 16 games to take place in Europe between October 1 and October 7 that will involve members of the Winnipeg Jets.