The Winnipeg Jets’ recent consistent losing has allowed a second team to surpass them in the NHL standings, knocking our squad down to 3rd place overall (tied w/ Washington Capitals & Minnesota Wild but have played 2 more games). And things don’t get easier with the Boston Bruins & Vegas Golden Knights up next on the schedule…
The Jets (20-9-0) have made some lineup alterations by sending 20 yr old Brad Lambert back to the Manitoba Moose after a short stint with the big club. In his place, coach Scott Arniel has called up 21 yr old Nikita Chibrikov to take his place on Winnipeg’s 2nd line. The staff has also pulled Colin Miller from the starting unit and that means Ville Heinola will have to deal with the issues of playing on his off-hand. One final change is a swap at the 4th line center position, seeing David Gustafsson take the place of Rasmus Kupari.
The Bruins (15-11-3) have possibly found the cure to their early season woes, as Boston has ripped off 4 straight wins…though they were all against likely non-playoff teams. From the sounds of it, star forward David Pastrnak is a little banged up and missed practice the other day…but it appears that he will still be on the ice tonight to challenge the Jets’ defense. The B’s are missing one of their defensemen to injury in Hampus Lindholm.
Here is how PuckPedia is predicting the coaches to line up their players this evening at the Canada Life Centre:
Despite the Winnipeg Jets’ recent scoring woes, they have a massive 28 more goals than the Boston Bruins this season. The difference isn’t as large on the defensive side of things, with the Jets allowing 12 less goals against in 2024-25. In terms of the NHL standings, Winnipeg sits with the 3rd best record, while Boston is holding onto the 11th position.
If you would like to check out the player stats for both teams, here are links to ESPN’s pages:
WINNIPEG:
https://www.espn.com/nhl/team/stats/_/name/wpg/winnipeg-jets
BOSTON:
https://www.espn.com/nhl/team/stats/_/name/bos/boston-bruins
When Winnipeg has lost this season (9 times), they have scored 1 goal or less in 7 of those games. So despite allowing the 6th least goals against in the NHL, the Jets aren’t good enough to win games when the offensive stars fail to show up. The last few games have been particularly troubling to watch, as multiple teams have almost completely shut down our players’ ability to penetrate the high scoring areas.
Here is how the teams stack up for tonight’s game tonight, plus ESPN’s look at the masked men:
Gotta get back to work, so won’t put much into how I think tonight’s game will play out. All I will say is that I hope the game is competitive enough to keep my attention for the entire 60 minutes. Also will be looking forward to seeing if the addition of Chibrikov to the 2nd line can spark some offense from that trio.
Very much frustrated by the Jets’ continued nonsensical insistence on playing Logan Stanley, but I certainly don’t have time to get into that. Let me hear your thoughts about the 7 pm game in the Peg….who is going to shine at the CLC on Tuesday night??
Go Winnipeg!!!
