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Recap: Winnipeg Jets Go Big Game Hunting

Well that was fun. The Winnipeg Jets scored a boat load of goals and didn’t allow any. That is a winning recipe! The Winnipeg Jets jumped out to an early lead and never looked, back 3 lines got in on the scoring, and the much-maligned Ondrej Pavelec pitched his first shutout since March of 2012 en route to the victory.

Despite the score, the Jets didn’t make things easy on themselves. The team suffered breakdown after breakdown and made Ondrej work for the win. Perhaps resting him from time to time would be wise. There isn’t much else to say about this game, but it will be interesting to see how the team looks Sunday night against the San Jose Sharks.

Thoughts:

  • Wowsers! Ondrej had his best game of the season. He appeared to be tracking the puck better in traffic and made a number of his normal strong reactionary saves. Hopefully the guise of competition can drive him to work on the correctable flaws in his game.
  • Is Zach Bogosian synonymous with Train Wreck? My goodness he looked awful again. He has been a mess for most of the season – but hey, he was plus one on the night and leads the team in plus minus because yeah… Tobias, percentages and whatever.
  • Speaking of defenders! Tobias Enstrom did a nice job covering for his struggling partner. His play on that 2-on-1 was really nice and notable, but he was sharp in both ends again.
  • As mentioned above, three lines got in on the goal scoring action tonight. Only the Schiefele line was held off the board – and even they remained solid. It was nice to see depth players contributing again.
  • Speaking of scoring – Bryan Little isn’t going to score on 26% of his shots all year, but he is playing damn well outside of the face-off dot. Good for him. He has probably been the Jets’ most consistent performer for each of their first three seasons, but he is getting more recognition right now because of the goals.
  • The shot clock flattered the Predators a little. The Jets were well ahead and holding their ground through two periods, but really laid off in the third… I think.
  • Brian Engblom is horrible. Players will shots into the net when they are on a hot streak? Sometimes Ladd, Little and Wheeler need to be broken up so they can play excited upon being reunited? He says a lot of stuff that is DUMB.
  • 0-for-3 on the power play again. As a fan this run is all sorts of weird and depressing at this point, but I have to imagine the players and coaches hate it more than we do.
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