ST.PAUL MN – The Winnipeg Jets decided to stray from the game plan for a bit and also abandon their physical hardnosed style for the second period of this game and it proved costly as the Wild scored four unanswered goals in a 12-minute span and hung on for a huge 5-3 win at home and also leap frog the Jets for third in the Central Division.
This road trip for Winnipeg could be a make or break trip as the tight Western Conference is already in playoff mode as teams jockey for position, and stats have shown that you need to be close to top the eight by American Thanksgiving or you can kiss the playoffs goodbye according to the stats.
The Jets had a lot of fans make the cross border trek to watch these two rivals play and will probably be upset that there team didn’t play a full sixty minutes once again.
Ondrej Pavelec was chased after giving up the fourth goal on only 12 shots although he wasn’t given much chance on a couple of bombs of the stick of Thomas Vanek. Michael Hutchinson came in and cleaned up for him allowing one goal on 16 shots.
Devan Dubnyk got the win for the Wild as he stopped 25 shots and improves to 9-3-1 on the season.
This game was the complete reverse of the teams’ last meeting in Winnipeg as the Jets chased Wild goalie Darcy Kuemper after he allowed four goals. The Wild made a game of it in the third period and closed the score a bit as the Jets did tonight coming back and making a game of it in the third period. It’s funny how when these two play the games always end up exciting.
Winnipeg got a pair of goals from Bryan Little his seventh and eighth of the season, Blake Wheeler added his seventh. Little had a three-point night and was one of few bright spots for the Jets.
“We can’t rely on our goalies to make those kind of saves like that,” Little said. “We gave up some chances and they scored on them. It was just a let-up by us.”
Minnesota got goals from Nino Niederreiter his fifth; Erik Haula scored a shorthanded goal his 2nd of the season, Thomas Vanek got his fifth and sixth, Chris porter scored his first.
“I just tried something. Obviously it worked out well,” Vanek said. “Just a 1-on-1 opportunity, I had good speed coming through the neutral zone.”
The Jets reassigned forward Patrice Cormier back to Manitoba of the AHL and activated forward Andrew Copp and the rookie center was back in the lineup for Tuesday’s game.
The Jets will head to Dallas to face a hot Stars team on Thursday night.
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