WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Jets have been a Jekyll-and-Hyde club this season as they look like a dominant force on some nights that can beat anybody and on other nights they look like a team that will be challenging for a lottery pick. Friday night they stepped up their game and took it to one of the best teams in the East, the New York Rangers, 5-2. Although the Rangers are struggling of late they are still one of the teams to watch out for in the Eastern Conference.
“At the end of the day right now, we have a few guys, not to say quite a few, [but] a lot of our top players are having a hard time with their game,” Rangers coach Alain 
Vigneault said. “It’s my job as coach to help them find their game. It’s as simple as that.”
The Jets have been struggling to find some sort of consistent identity this season after flying out of the gate to start and now struggling to stay in the race in the West got a full 60-minute effort tonight to earn a huge home ice win.
“We’re not far off the game that we’re supposed to be playing,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “It’s going to be a tough run, but I like the way we’re playing. I really do.”
Connor Hellebuyck was in between the pipes tonight and stopped 26 of 28 shots he faced to get his fifth win of the season after dropping his last two starts.
The Jets got a huge night from Bryan Little who had two goals and one assist his 11th and 12th goals of the year and Blake Wheeler who chipped in four assists on the night.
Also scoring for the Jets were Dustin Byfuglien who got his ninth on a laser from the point, Tyler Myers got his third and Captain Andrew Ladd added an empty net goal his ninth to round out the scoring.
Henrik Lundqvist was in goal for the Rangers and faced 35 shots stopping 31 of them.
“All I can say is that right now for us to win games I need to play my absolute best,” Lundqvist said.
“For us to turn it around, we need everybody to step up, and I need to make the extra save. It just has been a lot of chances in front, and it’s obviously something we’re talking about to try to fix, and I need to come with the extra save. I keep saying it. We’re really trying. We’re working hard.”
There were two new faces in the lineup for the Jets playing on the fourth line Joel Armia and a familiar face in Matt Halischuk both were recently called up from the Manitoba Moose. Halischuk played a very strong game as he had almost ten minutes of ice time and was great on the fore check and even had a couple good scoring chances. Armia showed some great speed and had some flashes of why the Jets are so high on him as a prospect.
The next action for the Jets will be a quick two game Western Canadian swing through Calgary and Edmonton winning both is almost a must now as both teams are right there in the thick of things.
NOTES: Chris Thorburn played in game 595 to become the franchise leader in games played for the Jets.
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