EDMONTON – After being named the First Star of the Week in the NHL earlier in the day, Ondrej Pavelec decided he wanted more of the spotlight and backstopped the Jets to a 4-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers. It was the fifth straight win for both the Jets and Pavelec who has been brilliant over the last five games.
“I like the way we were prepared to play,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “For the kind of game it was, the game changed at 3-0 a little bit, they had some real good chances, their game changed a little bit. But based on the two games we played prior with Edmonton, I’m happy with the way we played. It wasn’t perfect, we’re scratching and clawing right now.”
Pavelec was in the zone once again as he made 33 saves off 34 Oiler shots. He was named the game’s first star for the second consecutive game. He made numerous big stops when the young, high-flying Oilers decided to turn things on. He improves to 18-14-7 on the season.
“I didn’t do anything different tonight. The guys in front of me played really well and we were able to get the win. That’s the most important thing,” Pavelec said. “It was really important to get the lead against Edmonton, they have some really skilled players and they can make some plays. They are playing without any pressure and they have nothing to lose. We didn’t expect this to be easy and I think we handled it pretty well.”
Ben Scrivens was between the pipes for the Edmonton Oilers and stopped 20 out of 24 Jets shots.
Scrivens did what he could to keep the Oilers in this game but fell short as he does most nights on this young upcoming team.
This was a back and forth affair as both teams traded chances offensively, the jets probably don’t want to be giving up a lot of the chances that were given but with the goaltending they have been getting lately they will be happy with the win.
Special teams were the difference in this game as the Jets were 2 for 4 on the power play while the Oilers were 0 for 4 and that was the difference.
The Jets also showed they now have some depth in the lineup as they lost Blake Wheeler for half the game as he took a puck to the mouth in the first period and returned to the game in the third. They had some guys step up and eat some of those front line minutes.
Winnipeg got goals from Drew Stafford his 16th, Lee Stempniak his 11th, Tyler Myers his 7th, Michael Frolik his 17th.
“With a back-to-back, the first game is always really important,” said Myers. “I thought we did a really good job of just sticking to our system. We didn’t do anything special out there tonight, but I thought we played a solid, simple game. It was a little sloppy at the end, but for the most part, we kept it simple. We just stuck to our game plan and got the job done.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins got the lone Oiler goal his 23rd of the season.
“It’s past the point of ‘good try,'” Oilers center Derek Roy said. “At this point, it’s about getting the job done, that’s about it. Our power play (0-for-4) is not getting the job done. We have to go out there and work harder. When something’s not going well, work harder. We outshot them, we had our chances to come back in the game, but (Pavelec) made some big saves and we didn’t bury our chances. We played well in the third period; we just didn’t get off to a good enough start.”
The Jets will head to Vancouver to wrap up this back to back two-game trip and will look to keep their streak going.
The Jets wrapped up the season series with the Oilers sweeping the three games although this was the first game this season between them that didn’t require extra time.
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