The Winnipeg Jets began the post-Olympic break off by stumbling out of the starting blocks, as they let a 2 goal lead disappear in the 3rd period versus Anaheim. After rookie defenseman Elias Salomonsson scored his first NHL goal to put the True Northers up 3-1 early in the final frame, the hometown Ducks dominated play to eventually tie things up with 1:22 remaining. The Jets almost escaped overtime with the game deadlocked, but with 13 seconds still left on the scoreboard a puck slipped by Connor Hellebuyck.
With 1 point earned, Winnipeg moved to within 8 points of the Western Conference’s final wildcard spot…but when the Seattle Kraken blew out the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday, that once again increased to 10. The Jets do have a game in hand, so can return the number to 8 with a win this afternoon over the San Jose Sharks.
The True Northers have a tough road to earn a post-season berth, with 4 other teams to surpass on top of the 10 point deficit they need to overcome. Taking a look at the West’s standings below (via ESPN), we see that today’s opponent is just above the Jets in the standings. The Sharks have a 5 point lead with a game in hand on our club and today’s matinee could play a big role in which team finishes higher up in the standings. This will be the second of three meetings between Winnipeg & San Jose in 2025-26, with the northern Californian franchise winning the opener at home in November by a slim 2-1 margin. After today’s contest, the two squads will have to wait until the final game of the regular season to conclude the season series.
San Jose’s young team (28-25-4) began this season very well and only recently have dropped out of a playoff spot, assisted by a 5 game losing streak that they only recently ended with a big 5-4 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday afternoon. The Sharks are currently tied in the standings for 25th in the NHL with the New Jersey Devils. Looking at the team statistics, you can see why SJ has fallen down the standings, as they have only scored the 20th most goals this year while allowing the 26th least against. Not that impressive considering the True Northers have the 25th most goal scored and 14th least goals against.
Winnipeg (23-26-9) also started off the year decently, but their fall from grace occurred way earlier…assisted by a barrage of injuries and uninspired play by way too many skaters. After failing to pull off what would have been just their 5th winning streak of the year, the Jets will try to get an important 2 points when the action gets underway at 3 pm Central.
Here is how the two clubs’ year-to-date stats compare, via ESPN‘s team & goaltender comparison numbers:
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Early start today, so we won’t get the benefit of a pre-game skate to root out who will be playing this afternoon. We do know that Winnipeg continues to deal with multiple injuries, as Josh Morrissey, Neal Pionk, Nino Niederreiter, Vladislav Namestnikov, & Colin Miller are all on the sidelines. So far, it sounds like Mark Scheifele dodged a bullet with that knee-to-knee incident in OT against the Ducks and the rumour mill says that defenseman Haydn Fleury could be back in the starting line up today after a long spell in the injury bay. That would mean that Ville Heinola would come out, but from the sounds of it, Walker Duehr will make his Jets’ debut.
We will have to wait to see if it all plays out that way…for now here are the line up projections via PuckPedia:
WINNIPEG JETS LINE UP
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SAN JOSE SHARKS LINE UP
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Former Jet Tyler Toffoli is having a good year in the west coast (38 pts) and is tied with Alexander Wennberg for 4th in San Jose scoring. The top 2 spots are taken up by a couple young kids, with 20 yr old Will Smith (40) and 19 yr old phenom Macklin Celebrini (82) having career seasons.
Winnipeg has been led by the usual suspects, with the top forward line of Mark Scheifele (70 pts), Kyle Connor (67), and Gabriel Vilardi (52) being the main source of offense. Injured Josh Morrissey (42) was also playing well, but the Jets have just three other skaters with at least 20 points: Alex Iafallo (22), Cole Perfetti (21), and Logan Stanley (20).
It is well past 10 am here and my stomach is growling so loud it is bound to wake up my napping cats….so time to sign off in the usual way….even if I am not entirely cheering for a victory this afternoon.
Go Winnipeg Jets!!!!!
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POST-GAME INFO
Scoring Summary: (courtesy of ESPN)
FINAL SCORE: San Jose Sharks 2 Winnipeg Jets 1 (OT)
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Game Stats: (courtesy of MoneyPuck)
Expected Goals (all): SJS 3.28 WPG 1.72
Expected Goals (5on5): SJS 2.64 WPG 1.47
Not much to be happy about for the Jets up front, other than a strong outing by the Barron unit. They scored Winnipeg’s only 5 on 5 goal, while the Scheifele line allowed San Jose’s only even strength marker.
Winnipeg had better results on the back end where the top 4 had quality games once again. However, the line up change involving the 3rd pairing backfired as the Fleury–Schenn duo got absolutely destroyed. Unsurprisingly, that pairing gave up the only 5 on 5 strength goal against while the Samberg–Salomonsson were on the ice for the Jets’ lone goal for.
Hellebuyck played fairly well until the True Northers once again allowed an out-numbered forward to score against multiple Jets’ defenders….neither of which made Bucky look all that great. In the end, the numbers say the Sharks seriously out-chanced our team, so the result was probably better than they deserved.
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BOJA’S Post-Game Thoughts:
Besides a very good outing by Morgan Barron, Cole Koepke, and Tanner Pearson….there was not that much positive about this Sunday afternoon performance by the Winnipeg Jets. Playing at the same time, their AHL affiliate emulated the big club as the Manitoba Moose let a 3rd period lead slip through their fingers to suffer an overtime loss. Struggling Nikita Chibrikov had a good outing, pocketing a goal & an assist but also was on the ice for 2 out of 3 of Milwaukee’s final goals. Brayden Yager is on a bit of a point streak adding a primary assist by setting up a 1 timer in the slot that created a rebound chance for a teammate.
Two more games for the True Northers before the March 6th trade deadline, with the Chicago Blackhawks (Tuesday) and the Tampa Bay Lightning (Thursday) on tap. Winnipeg remains 9 points back from the West’s final wildcard spot and are sitting with the 6th worst record in the NHL at this point. Need the Calgary Flames to pull out a win tonight (up 1-0 in early 2nd) and the Alberta franchise will join them in a tie for 5th/6th. Other bottom feeders like the Chicago Blackhawks & St. Louis Blues picked up 2 points today, so the Jets crept a bit closer to the NHL’s floor.
