Steven Stamkos needs 60 goals this year - Tampa needs him to score 60 goals this year. What else would they have, otherwise? Maybe it'll make Guy Boucher look a little less Putin-ish.

Obviously, this game doesn't mean a whole lot to the Jets, outside of the opportunity to tank and get a better pick. It's an unlikely scenario, but if we lose this game, and Carolina and Minnesota win, we'll be really close to being in the lottery! My lines are going to be all sorts of wrong so bear with me...

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...because we're great at breaking slumps. There is some talk about playing the "spoiler" for our storied rivals, but the only spoiler here would be giving us a lower pick in the draft. We're certainly committed to shutting players down, as we pretty much have had no choice in the cases of Tanner Glass and Kyle Wellwood...Dustin Byfuglien's pretty dinged up, too. Anyway, the only things that matter with this game are our draft position, our "pride", and our opportunity to play some young guys, so let's tank this mother.

Keys to the Game, lineups, and predictions after the jump.

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Following the Jets' overtime heroics last night in Carolina, it would seem that they do not wish to obtain a high draft pick as badly as I do. The win puts a dent in the #greatesttankbattle battleplans, as now the Jets sit a few points ahead of teams such as the Hurricanes, Lightning, Wild, Islanders and the Maple Leafs. Which is most unfortunate, although I'm sure Toronto will once again make a bad decision at the draft and draft someone like Ryan Murray, who I am less than convinced "has was it takes".

The Jets have a perfectly good chance to make up for that unfortunate mishap last night, when they take on their Southeast Division counterparts in the Tampa bay Lightning tonight. With the combination of back to back games, plus this being a road game, the jets have a decent chance of losing. If that lands us a high pick to spend on a scoring centre then I'm all for it.

Expect the goaltenders to be Pavelec and Roloson tonight, as Coach Guy Boucher of the Bolts has said he'd be riding Rolly until Tampa was out, and Pavs should see the net as Iron Mason did the job last night in Raleigh.

The Jets will be without hard hitting, fan favourite Tanner Glass tonight, as the man who fights bears broke his foot in the first period last night before champing it out the rest of the game. So with that in mind, the lineups you see after the jump are pretty much resembling dogs breakfast.

I hope you enjoy them ever so much.

Keys to the Game, Player Numbers, the previously mentioned lineups and a sad Predicition coming up right after THE JUMP

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Now that we are through with the "biggest game of the season" it is time to move on to the first of four "biggest games of the season in relation to the offseason." I know that is a bit wordy, but the results of tonight’s game will greatly impact 2012 NHL draft positioning. This is very important!! If you want to proudly say "The Winnipeg Jets finished 3^rd in the South Least", this is a must win. If you are a fan of Tank Nation, as I am, you want a hard fought loss. This is a big game!!

The bottom of the Easter Conference is a complete clusterpuck this year. While the Jets currently sit in 10^th place they are only four points out of 14^th and a lottery pick in the upcoming draft. To add to this, four of the Jet’s remaining five games (Carolina, NYI and Tampa twice) are against teams that currently rank 10^th through 14^th in the east. Every game is a must watch!

Moving on to tonight’s game, the winner moves up the standings (unless the Canes win in OT) and the loser moves up the draft board. So which Jets goalie gets the start? I am going to assume we see Mason for the first time in ages. A Mason start would have nothing to do with tanking the game. This is the first game of a back to back and Mason has played Carolina well this season. Mason is 4-1 against the Canes, Pavelec has been bad. Pavi is 0-1 with a .850 save percentage; remember he also got pulled from an early season showdown. There may also be a couple players returning form injury, it will be interesting to see who dresses.

Keys to the Game, Player Numbers and Lineups coming up after THE JUMP

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Alrighty, for those of you not mathematically inclined I'm going to spell it out with an analogy for you: the odds of teh Jets making the playoffs are about as good as that of a snowstorm hitting Ecuador. It's not impossible, but it's highly improbable.

However, I don't really feel like painting the doom and gloom portrait of what went wrong and who's to blame so I'm just going to concentrate on the task at hand: tonight's game against the visiting New York Rangers. The Rangers have 103 points on the year, good enough for 2nd place in the NHL (1st if they win in regulation or OT tonight) as well as 1st in the Eastern Conference and 1st in the ultra competitive, high flying Atlantic Division (for all teams not named the Islanders).

The Rangers are also coming off a game last night. Before you start saying "Woohoo! We have a chance!" I'll stop you and say: it's the Rangers. A good team that laughs at the fact that other teams struggle with back to back games. The blue collar boys have amassed a record of 8-2-2 in the second half of back to back meetings this year.

Henrik Lundqvist DID play, so there's the chance that we see the pride of Lac-Saint-Charles, Martin Biron. Either way, the goalie isn't the only issue. It's not a high powered offense that does you in, as these NYR fellows have only 4 more goals than the Jets. Rather it's goaltending and defense, as their 170 goals against is good for 3rd lowest in the League and is significantly lower than the 223 the Jets have allowed.

Don't expect a high scoring game tonight. But don't expect a win either.

Keys to the Game, Player Numbers and Lineups coming up after THE JUMP

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Hey yo - I'm still bitter about two days ago. So how can this team pick up the pieces? A home game! Nevermind the fact that if we can't win on the road, we have no chance in realizing the already-slim odds of sneaking into the 8 spot. What might be the most effective strategy for Claude Noel: 1.) Play the Tim Stapleton - Ben Maxwell - Spencer Machacek line 20 minutes, 2.) Play Randy Jones, 3.) Win the game? Let's be serious here...the recent success of the aforementioned MSM Line is but a blip in the sample of Steam Punk, BMax, and Mach 46's talents. They are not this good, nor are they that bad. Ran_y Jones (the guy has no D), on the other hand, is that bad. Let's just play this one normal, not play Ran_y Jones, and win the game - okay?

Keys to the Game, Lineups, and Prediction after the jump.

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What a game last night, eh? Well, as much fun as it would be for the boys to have some bromantic downtime, Steam Punk and Co. need to hop on a plane and get their asses over to Graceland and Dollywood. Did we mention last time that yesterday's game was important? Oh yeah, this one is, too...we have one game in hand on our greatest competition for the 8 spot (Washington Capitals, Buffalo Sabres), so every game is going to count from here on out.

Which is great news, right, because the Jets world turned on Jim Slater's fight! With the Jets having already scored one goal towards their comeback, AC decided to throw down against Brooks Laich and they whipped each other around for awhile. While the outcome was pretty much a draw, Claude Noel (and others) seemed to think that it was Slater's fight (or Laich's fight, however you want to look at it) that was the cause for the comeback. Nevermind the extraordinary efforts by the Tim Stapleton - Ben Maxwell - Spencer Machacek line, nevermind the awesome quote by Karl Alzner ("We shit the bed")...but it's not really worth dwelling on. We won, and I think most of us know that the real fight was 3 goals, two out of Steam Punk & the Kids, capped by a persistent Punk in the OT. We did it, we did it away in Washington, and we did it with very little scoring out of our top 2 lines.

Now to Dollywood, with a new Russian forward fresh out of the packaging. In all seriousness, Alexander Radulov is a frighteningly good forward, a guy who's torn up the KHL, scored a goal in his first game back to the NHL, and is rumored to have increased the swoon-rate of cougars in the metropolitan Nashville area ten-fold. We've already faced down one talented Russian (just kidding, he scored twice on us), can we handle another? ... Just as there is more than just that one Russian to worry about in Washington, the Preds have Sergei Kostitsyn, he of the ridiculously high shooting percentage over nearly 2 full seasons, and sneaky-good Martin Erat, and Shea Weber, and David Legwand, and...and...you get the idea.

Keys to the Game, Lineups, and Prediction after the jump.

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