The Winnipeg Jets were able to use home-ice advantage on Wednesday evening when they pulled ahead in their series against the St. Louis Blues with a big victory in Game 5. Unfortunately, that win didn’t come without a cost, as the True North franchise lost the services of star center Mark Scheifele to injury. As a result, the Jets will head to Missouri short-handed as they most likely will also be missing speedy winger Nikolaj Ehlers for the 6th straight playoff contest.
So far in the series, the home team has come out on top and Winnipeg will be hoping to avoid that pattern when the puck drops at 7 pm Central. The Enterprise Center in St. Louis has been kind to the Blues in the post-season, giving them two fairly lop-sided wins as they out-scored the Jets 12 to 3.
Therefore, head coach Scott Arniel and the rest of the staff will be trying to ensure that Winnipeg has a better start to this road game so that his blue collar line up can grind out a low scoring win. To get that result, the squad will have to rely on goalie Connor Hellebuyck having his best game of the post-season, something that is very much needed to change the narrative on Bucky’s playoff struggles.
At this point of time before the morning skates clarify things, this is how PuckPedia is suggesting the two franchises will line up their players tonight:
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There is a lot of talk about the Winnipeg-St. Louis series being the most physical on in the NHL playoffs, but when I actually checked the stats the two teams sit in 7th & 8th place in the bodycheck totals. In fact, it was the Los Angeles-Edmonton series that put up a whopping 466 hits over their 6 matches, which gives those clubs 41 more bodychecks than our series.
Here are the rest of the head-to-head statistics from this year’s playoffs for the Jets & Blues:
While I haven’t actually gone back to check recently, I believe I did the research at an earlier time that indicated the Winnipeg Jets have never won a playoff game when Mark Scheifele didn’t dress, so the True Northers will have to pull out one more “first ever” record this season if they want to avoid the dreaded Game 7 anxiety.
A slight positive if the Jets do end up needing another game at the Canada Life Centre to determine the eventual winner is that the Dallas Stars & Colorado Avalanche will be going to 7….so the next series will feature equally worn down teams. Hopefully the team from the Peg can avoid that and get a little rest & relaxation before the next round of the post-season by pulling out the unexpected win tonight.
I will now turn it over to the Arctic Ice Hockey members to discuss how they feel the game will go in the Comment section. Guess we will have to see if SaskatoonJet is feeling clairvoyant today and can come up with another perfect score prediction. For my part, I opted for a photo of captain Adam Lowry, the entire Winnipeg Jets’ bench, & the CLC fans for the BOJA Boost, in the hopes that it will carry over the voodoo from the home arena to propel the True Northers to a series win tonight.
Go Winnipeg!!!!!!!!!!!!!
***13 exclamation marks for the 13 wins the Jets need to lift the Cup.***
