TAMPA, Fla – The Jets finished off this road swing just like it started with a gritty, full team effort in a 2-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Jets were in must win mode as they had fallen below the playoff line for the first time since early December and needed a gutsy effort from everybody, which they got.
They especially needed a huge game from Ondrej Pavelec who was making his first start in goal since Feb.19. He needed a big game to get his mojo back and he was a rock between the pipes as he faced only 16 shots stopping 15 of them. He made a key save off Tyler Johnson in the first when he flashed the leather to rob the Lightning’s top point man.
“They didn’t get a whole lot of offensive chances with rushes,” Jets defenseman Paul Postma said. “They are a team that thrives on turnovers and we didn’t have many tonight. We clogged up the neutral zone pretty well, didn’t let them gain momentum with speed coming up the ice.”
Pavelec evens his record to 14-14-7 on the season and we will see if he gets the nod for the next game.
The Lightning countered with Andrei Vasilevskiy who was a lot busier in his end as the Jets fired 29 shots his way and he stopped 27 of them. He falls to 6-4-1 on the season with the loss.
The Jets frustrated the high flying Lightning attack all game long with a very strong physical checking game and clogged everything up on the Lightning limiting all their chances.
“We fought hard to get pucks back and block shots, when we didn’t do that our goalie made the saves,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “We moved the puck out of our end really well, all four center ice men did a good job of staying with the puck.”
Winnipeg got a goal from Drew Stafford who ripped home his 14th a power play marker from Lee Stempniak and Jiri Tlusty.
“We were on them early, our forecheck was there,” Stafford said. “We were pressuring their D at the point and making them hurry with the puck. We were making sure that they were frustrated and had a lack of offense.”
Blake Wheeler also scored for the Jets, his 20th, a beauty after he picked off an errant pass and snapped one top shelf for the game winner.
“I just got a good bounce,” Wheeler said. “They had been going [defenseman-to-defenseman] all night so I had a read on it. I stuck my stick out and hit it. Sometimes you get lucky out there. It was a team effort though. We really did it on defense and made the plays when we needed to on offense.”
Tampa Bay got their lone goal off the stick of Nikita Kucherov who fired a laser past Pavelec for his 26th of the season.
Kucherov was assessed a boarding major as he drilled Toby Enstrom into the glass with a punishing check that cut Enstrom who skated off on his power and later returned to the game which was good news for the injury riddled Jets.
The Jets see their record improve to 34-23-12 and were back ahead of LA for the final wild card spot with LA losing to Nashville tonight.
“We were playing a really desperate hockey team and they played a playoff-style game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “They really wanted to win and they did. Not saying we didn’t want to win the game, but we didn’t match anything they brought to the table. They were just stronger, faster, hungrier and we couldn’t match it.”
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