WINNIPEG – The Minnesota Wild were riding high on a six-game win streak coming into tonight’s huge Central Division battle with the Winnipeg Jets. The Jets have been cruising ahead of the Wild in the standings until recently where now the Wild are in hot pursuit and have three games in hand.
The Jets got it done in overtime with a huge 2-1 win courtesy of a Dustin Byfuglien beauty snipe job and move seven points up on Minnesota now in the standings.
“We played a good team game,” Byfuglien said of fending off a persistent Minnesota team. “I think we should be happy with what we did, and we stuck to it all the way through. I think for a lot of our young guys it’s the closest thing they’ve seen to a Playoff game so far.”
This was a playoff type atmosphere as it was a low scoring tight checking work hard for every inch game. These two teams have developed quite the rivalry and always seem to play one-goal games when they get together.
“There is no way that you can be tired right now,” Minnesota coach Mike Yeo said. “You can’t have that. Every team is going to have tough schedules, and this is why we condition our players hard. Our practices are hard. We’ve prepared for this, so now that we’re in this grind, we should be ready for it.”
The last three have gone to overtime.
“I’m obviously disappointed to not get two points, but I’m very pleased with the way that we fought through a tough game,” Yeo said. “You could tell that our energy level was not there, but I think that we grinded it out, and in the end we were able to get a big point.”
Michael Hutchinson got the start in the pipes for the Jets. He has been back on his game in his last couple starts and tonight he made 29 saves off 30 Wild shots. Hutch also had some help from his posts as the Wild clanged a couple off the iron. He was named the game’s first star tonight. He improves to 15-7-3 on the season.
“You knew that [Dubnyk] was going to come out and make some great saves, and he did,” Hutchinson said. “In games where that happens, you know you have to buckle down. You might only get one or two [goals] on the night.”
Dean Dubnyk got the start for Minnesota his 11th consecutive game since he was acquired from the Coyotes on January 14th. He was just recently named the league’s first star of the week. His record since he joined the Wild is 8-1-1 and has been a major reason they are back in the thick of things. Tonight he made 32 saves off 34 shots. He also had help from the iron as the Jets hit a couple of bars tonight as well.
“That was a team that knew they were going to pounce on us given the fact that we had played [Monday],” Yeo said. “We weathered the storm a little bit, but you don’t do that unless you have great goaltending, and [Dubnyk] gave us that.”
Winnipeg got goals from Toby Enstrom his 3rd on a screened shot from the point with Byfuglien planted in front. Big Buff scored his 14th an absolute beauty as he did some board work and stole a loose puck and broke in with Blake Wheeler and just went bar down on Dubnyk who covers a ton of net being 6’6 tall.
“You just had to get comfortable in the game, and you couldn’t start doing different things because their goaltender was so good, and we didn’t,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “We stuck with it and got a break on a shot to the net, which is what we had talked about.”
Minnesota got its lone goal off the stick of Jason Pominville who took advantage of a great bounce and ripped home his 11th of the season.
The Jets will now head out on the road to face the top dogs in the West the Nashville Predators and then the Detroit Red Wings for a tough two game trip.
Winnipeg improves to 28-18-10 on the season and sit in 5th overall in the West.
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