Possibly due to the intense rivalry between the Winnipeg Jets and Nashville Predators, you don’t often see transactions between the two franchises. Last year that changed though, when Kevin Cheveldayoff opted to send a 2nd round pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft to the Preds for Swiss winger Nino Niederreiter and I got to say the Jets received good value in the trade. For one thing, Winnipeg has never been great at drafting in the 2nd round anyways, but the team eased the pain of a lost selection when they acquired the Montreal Canadiens’ 2nd round pick in the Pierre-Luc Dubois move. Can Nino & his teammates lead the Jets to victory against his former squad and keep the winning streak going….let’s find out.
The Winnipeg Jets had an early chance when the Scheifele line gained the offensive end and started the cycle. A pass from below the goalline found Connor out front in the low slot, but the sniper couldn’t release it quick enough and the puck sailed wide off a defender’s stick. It took 4 minutes for either team to actually get a shot on a goalie and it was Brossoit who had to make a save off a long point shot through traffic. After falling behind 3 to 0 in shots, the Lowry line were heavy on the forecheck and were able to stop Nashville’s clearing attempt at the blueline, allowing Niederreiter to test the Predators’ Saros with a long wrist shot. After Winnipeg kept the Preds to the perimeter on a couple more offensive zone shifts, the Jets finally started to tilt play their way. The Namestnikov line got it going when the Russian had a glorious look from the low slot, but failed to hit the net. On the same shift, the center started a rush before passing the puck over to Ehlers in Nashville’s zone. The Danish winger hit Perfetti in stride and the youngster deked his way in tight, forcing Saros to stretch to make a pad save. The Lowry line followed things up, creating a dangerous chance when Niederreiter narrowly missed a deflection on a Schmidt point shot. The top trio had their best shift of the period and Saros came up big denying Iafallo and Scheifele in quick succession. The puck was still lose and Winnipeg was able to get a stick on it, but Connor’s attempt missed the yawning cage. At the mid-point of the period, the Jets were dominating the shot clock 11 to 3, but Nashville wasn’t going to allow the visitors to walk all over them. The Predators then spent the next bit pushing for a goal in the Jets’ zone and while Winnipeg kept the majority of the chances to the perimeter, Brossoit had to make a couple quality saves. The Gustafsson line finally got the puck out of the Jets’ end and spent a shift cycling the puck before the game opened up for a bit. The squads traded chances when Samberg sent Connor on a rush and DeMelo played a 2 on 1 to perfection, forcing O’Reilly to take the shot on Brossoit. Some confusion between Schmidt & Perfetti resulted in a failed zone clearance and once again the Jets’ tender had to make some saves. In the last minute of the period, a Winnipeg neutral zone turnover led to a 3 man counter-attack, but the Jets had plenty of men back to defend. Josi skated the puck up the left boards and when he was almost level with the net, he threw the puck towards Brossoit. Winnipeg’s backup was able to get a pad in front of the puck, but it bounced right out front of the net. Surrounded by three Jets’ defenders, Trenin had enough space to shovel the puck into the open net and gave the hometown Predators a 1 to 0 lead heading into the intermission.
First Period Stats: Score: 1 to 0 for the Predators, shots 14 to 13 for the Jets, 58.8% Deserve To Win for the Jets, Expected Goals – all situations (1.67-1.22 WPG), & 5 on 5 (1.67-1.22 WPG)
Still reeling a bit from giving up a bad late period goal, Winnipeg opened up the 2nd period on their back heels. A harmless looking 4 on 4 rush for Nashville saw Josi once again skating up with the puck along the left-hand boards. The talented defenseman ended up taking a shot from a poor angle and somehow the puck trickled through Brossoit’s equipment to put the Preds up by 2 just a minute & a half into the frame. The Jets tried to re-right the ship and tried to get back into the game but a tripping penalty to Namestnikov put another obstacle in the way of a comeback. Nashville was able to win the face-off and after a couple back and forth passes along the blueline, a perfect shot/pass by Josi found Nyquist to the right of the Jets’ net for an easy tip in. The next 4 minutes saw Winnipeg try to solve Saros, but Scheifele was denied on a nice deke and the Jets’ 1st powerplay couldn’t get anything going. The middle of the period saw Appleton back-check hard to break up an odd-man rush and then the Jets killing off the Predators’ 2nd powerplay of the game. A couple players tried to get the visiting team back into the game by playing physically, with Namestnikov solidly rubbing out Josi into the boards and Pionk delivering an old-school hip check to perfection.
After Two Periods Stats Score: 3 to 0 for the Predators, shots 23 to 18 for the Jets, 50% Deserve to Win for each team, Expected Goals – all situations (1.99-1.88 WPG) & 5 on 5 (1.97-1.66 WPG)
The opening 6 minutes of the 3rd didn’t see a whole lot happen, but the top line had a high-danger look shortly after when Iafallo was robbed from directly in front of Saros. Nashville sat back and waited for Winnipeg’s mistakes, countering with a few quality attacks that Brossoit was able to deny. Lowry won a face-off at this own blueline, poking the puck to the wide open left side of the ice. Morrissey jumped up and won the race for the puck, skating it into the Preds’ zone. The defender attempted a cross-ice pass to a streaking teammate, but a Nashville defenseman blocked the attempt. Fortunately, it bounced right back to Morrissey and he was able to finally beat Saros to make it 3 to 1 with 9 & a half minutes to play. The following shift saw Ehlers flying up the ice, but he was hauled down and the Jets PP unit hopped over the boards. Some good effort allowed Scheifele to get a face-off win and he was able to send the puck back to a wide open Perfetti at the left point. He stepped in a few feet before launching a rocket that rang off the cross-bar and behind the Preds’ tender to make it 3 to 2, just 42 seconds after scoring their 1st goal. The Namestnikov trio almost evened things up shortly after when a pass deflected off a defenseman’s skate, forcing Saros to get his body in front to keep his squad ahead. Nashville was doing their best to clog up the neutral zone, causing Winnipeg headaches on their breakouts and stopping them from gaining the offensive zone with puck possession. The Lowry line eventually was able to gain the zone with the help of strong play by Morrissey and the Namestnikov trio followed with some more pressure the next shift. Connor had another look when he banked the puck off the boards in his own end and retrieved it before skating down the ice to test Saros. With 4 minutes left on the clock, Winnipeg continued to search for a way through Nashville’s defense and managed a few opportunities…Namestnikov denied at the side of net, the Scheifele line created a scramble in front of Saros that resulted in a couple good shots, and Morrissey had a slapshot off a Scheifele face-off win. In the end, the late push came up short as the Jets’ winning streak ended at five.
FINAL SCORE: NASHVILLE PREDATORS 3 WINNIPEG JETS 2
SHOTS: WINNIPEG JETS 35 NASHVILLE PREDATORS 27
Game Observations:
- Some of the Jets tried to play very physical last night, with Dylan DeMelo leading the way with 8 bodychecks. Honorable mentions to Mason Appleton, Brenden Dillon, & Neal Pionk with 6 hits each.
- I am ruing my pre-season praise of the Jets’ goaltending depth, as most of the franchise’s masked men are struggling to start the season. Besides outliers Connor Hellebuyck & Thomas Milic, the remaining goalies like Laurent Brossoit, Collin Delia, & Oskari Salminen are not finding much success early on. Brossoit did make some top-notch saves last night, but the first 2 goals against have to be considered “weak ones“. The Josi goal just can’t happen at the NHL level and in the end, it cost the team some points.
- But Brossoit doesn’t have to shoulder the full blame for the loss. To use a typical hockey phase, the entire Winnipeg roster failed to play a “full 60” on Sunday. While the statistics were fairly even for the match, the Jets probably only showed up for a half game at best. However, it was nice to see them end up fighting to get back into the game, rather than just taking the loss without a pushback.
- Winnipeg’s PP somehow went 1 for 2 despite only creating 0.13 expected goals in 2:06 of ice-time. The quick Cole Perfetti goal on the second PP was a very nice snipe though.
- I thought Josh Morrissey had an excellent 3rd period and he was second on the team in shots on net with 5. I am always awed by his edge-work as he dangles, cuts back, and dekes along the opponent’s blueline to create offensive chances.
- Kyle Connor led Winnipeg with 6 tests of Saros, with he & Morrissey accounting for almost 33% of the Jets total shots.
- Holy crap!! A team scored a 5 on 5 goal against Dylan Samberg, dropping his plus/minus on the season to +4. The young American has been putting up monster statistics defending at even strength this year and hopefully it’s just a sign he’s on his way to reaching his full potential.
- MoneyPuck Stats: 52.7% Deserve to Win for the Predators, 2.78 to 2.76 in expected goals (all situations) for the Jets, and 2.65 to 2.54 in expected goals (5 on 5) for the Jets.
Well, the Jets will certainly be happy to come home from their road trip with a 2-1 record as they get set for a 4 game home stand, even if the effort in the final game could have been better. Their time back in the Peg won’t be easy though, as they face their division rivals in an important game to open things up, then go against a couple of superstars in Connor McDavid (Edmonton Oilers) and Connor Bedard (Chicago Blackhawks), before finishing with the competitive Carolina Hurricanes.
NEXT GAME: Dallas Stars @ Winnipeg Jets – Tuesday, November 28th @ 7 pm Central
I mentioned Oskari Salminen earlier on, but thought I would note that he is coming off his best game of the season yesterday, back-dropping the Manitoba Moose to a win while putting up a .935 save percentage. Currently the Moose have 3 players in the top 16 of rookie points per game (Nikita Chibrikov – 3rd, Brad Lambert – 10th, and Chaz Lucius – 16th).
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