DALLAS – This was a huge game for both teams as the Jets were looking to put more distance between themselves and the Dallas Stars and the Stars were looking to continue to pursue the Jets in the standings as they have two games in hand.
The Jets had outstanding goaltending from Ondrej Pavelec and came away with a huge 2-1 win.
“I will answer every question about what I think about this game, but anything that I say would distract people from our goaltender’s performance and I can’t in good conscience let that happen,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “Ondrej Pavelec had an incredible night; [he] is the reason that we got two points, is the reason that we didn’t get embarrassed. That was clearly just a special effort by a gifted man.”
Pavelec was unreal as he stopped 46 out of 47 shots including some spectacular saves off Jamie Benn and robbery off a Tyler Seguin point blank partial breakaway with the glove hand. He was the hands down the single reason the Jets won this game and was named the game’s first star.
“I’ll take the win,” Pavelec said. “Of course, it would be nice [to get the shutout]. I wouldn’t lie but hockey’s 60 minutes, so it doesn’t matter when they score. A huge goal on the penalty kill that helped us a lot.”
The Winnipeg Jets did not bring there A game tonight in Dallas and luckily there goaltender bailed them out on numerous occasions and had the whole Dallas bench shaking their heads all game long. Defensive zone coverage was nonexistent for the most part as the Jets were out of sorts and struggling with the puck and without it.
The Stars countered with Anders Lindback who didn’t see too many pucks as the Jets fired 22 shots on goal.
Winnipeg got goals from Michael Frolik his 9th of the season converting a nice dish from Mathieu Perreault, Evander Kane got his 9th a shorthanded marker.
“We haven’t been playing the best in front of him this season, and for him (Pavelec) to have a performance like that and get us a win, it just reestablishes his confidence and our confidence in him,” Kane said. “I don’t know how many highlight-reel saves you can make throughout the course of a game before somebody scores, so it was a great performance by him.”
Dallas got their lone goal off the stick of Trevor Daley who ripped a rocket his 11th of the season to snap the shutout bid from Pavelec.
“The power play had point-blank opportunities,” Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. “Your best players have to put it in the back of the net, and they didn’t go. Some hit bodies; they blocked quite a few shots. We just missed too many good opportunities.”
Dallas went 0-7 on the power play and the Jets penalty killers were focused and on tonight. Benn , Seguin, Jason Spezza will be scratching their heads all night wondering how they didn’t each get a hat trick tonight and wondering what Pavelec ate for breakfast.
“I thought we got off the puck a little bit,” Kane said of the Jets’ play in second period. “We weren’t as aggressive on our forecheck and in our neutral zone as we were in the first and as we kind of have been all season. When you give a team with their skill and their speed time and space to make plays in the neutral zone, they’re going to create chances and I think we got away from our pressure a little bit in the second.”
Dustin Byfuglien again had a huge game as well as he played just under twenty five minutes and had a few big hits. The Stars were trying to get on him and it was like poking a sleeping bear with a stick!
“It was utter domination but we didn’t finish,” Ruff said. “We had great opportunities. I don’t think you can play any better and have that many missed opportunities. You have to give Pavelec a lot of credit but, at the same time, our near-misses should have been in the back of the net.”
The Jets will have another massive hill to climb as they head to Chicago to face a well rested Hawks team salivating to face them.
Winnipeg improves to 23-14-8 on the season good for 5th in the West.
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