WINNIPEG -The city of Winnipeg was buzzing with the NHL’s announcement of the Heritage Classic Game 2016 being awarded to Winnipeg who will play the Edmonton Oilers in October next year. With Connor McDavid in town for a showdown with the Jets Sunday, the excitement level was through the roof. It was a typical scenario for the Jets this season as they outplayed and created enough chances to win but ran into a hot goalie and were stymied by a couple of posts in a tough 2-1 loss to the Oilers.
Cam Talbot made 39 saves in win over Jets – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Cam Talbot was in goal for Edmonton and as was the case the last time these teams met he was on fire stopping 39 of 40 shots including a couple huge stops off Dustin Byfuglien and Blake Wheeler. He also had the help of his goal posts as the Jets rang a couple off the iron.
“The result of him being a wall back there, giving us an opportunity to scratch and claw for wins, has been pretty impressive,” Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. “If we can keep him up and running and healthy, not only this [season] but moving forward, we feel we’ve got a really good one there.”
Ondrej Pavelec made 29 saves for the Jets including five shots from McDavid one of those a breakaway in the first period.
Edmonton got goals from Patrick Maroon his sixth and Lauri Korpikoski his eighth.
Mark Scheifele stayed hot and got his 21st of the season off a nice set up from Blake Wheeler.
The Jets took it to the Oilers for most of the game but just couldn’t bury their scoring chances , they also took it to them physically as well as they dished out 24 hits.
“Ever since, I think, a couple of games before the NHL Trade Deadline in California, we have made a conscious effort to focus a little bit more on our zone, maybe be a little more responsible with the third man high, staying above their outlets, and we’ve been doing a heck of a job not giving up too many odd-man rushes because that was our Achilles heel for a little bit there,” Talbot said.
Jacob Trouba was back in the lineup for Winnipeg after missing Saturday night’s game and the Jets returned Josh Morrissey to the Manitoba Moose after he suited up last night in his NHL debut.
“We’ve had [Andrew Ladd, Bryan Little and Nikolaj Ehlers] go out of our lineup in the past two weeks, so the games are going to look like this,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “We’re trying to generate offense without having to give too much up. We’re trying to pound that good defensive game into them.”
Notes: The Heritage Classic will be played at Investors Group Field on October 23, 2016. The game will also feature the popular Alumni game between Oiler legends and Jets legends. Oiler great and NHL all time leading scorer Wayne Gretzky will captain the Oiler Legends and Hall of Famer Dale Hawerchuk will captain the Jets Legends. Teemu Selanne has already confirmed he will be here playing for the Jets alumni squad. These two teams had a fierce rivalry in the 80’s and 90’s so this will be a great event.
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