Dustin Byfuglien made his presence felt in win over Avs – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Jets were showing signs of breaking their six-game losing streak as the last couple of games they have been getting back to their style and have come up short in overtime. This was a must win against a slumping Colorado Avalanche coming off a loss last night against the Wild. Winnipeg used a four goal outburst in the second period to win 5-3. It was their first win since January 21 before the All Star break.
Ondrej Pavelec got the nod in the pipes tonight and made 25 saves off 28 Avalanche shots to get the win. He improves to 13-11-7 on the season.
Semyon Varlamov got the start for Colorado he was starting again after playing yesterday against the Wild. He made 24 saves off of 29 Jets shots. He falls to 14-13-7 on the season.
This was a real fast paced game between two very good skating teams who love to use their speed. The Jets were back to there in your face forecheck and creating a lot of havoc down low. The tone was set early as Chris Thorburn and Cody McLeod tried to jump start their respective teams and dropped the gloves for a spirited tilt that got everybody going. As if they didn’t have enough of each other they decided to go again in the third period for a second round of chucking knuckles; two good guys trying to send messages to their teams.
“I was very pleased with the first period,” Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said. “I would say that the rest of the game we had too many turnovers and giveaways, and they scored on their power play. If you turn over the puck like we did, it will be costly [sometimes].”
The Jets had a couple of new combinations on the bottom two lines as Adam Lowry was a scratch due to an illness just before game time. Recently recalled Patrice Cormier drew into the lineup for his first game of the season. Jim Slater jumped up to center the third line.
The line of Dustin Byfuglien, Mark Sheifele, Mathieu Perreault was a force all game as the trio all had multi point games and were named the games three stars.
“When [those three players] are going like the way they were after the first [period], they’re a lot to handle,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said.
Jets goal scorers were Perreault with his 18th, Byfuglien with his 13th, Ben Chiarot with his 2nd, Bryan Little with his 21st, Jacob Trouba rounded things out with his 6th.
“I like the growth that we needed to see this week,” Maurice said. “It has not been an easy week for us. We have learned some things on how to handle our family and the fact that when you handle it a certain way, not everybody is going to agree, and it doesn’t make for easy days.
“But you handle it the right way. Most importantly, we’re all getting to paid to do it, is to play a certain way. I think we have done that the past three games.”
Avalanche got goals from Tyson Barrie his 6th, Matt Duchene his 14th, Alex Tanguay his 14th.
“We have to find a solution to [the power play] soon if we want to have a chance to get into the Playoff race,” Colorado forward Ryan O’Reilly said. “We’ve put ourselves in a bit of a hole the past three games. It’s frustrating. We just have to focus on the next game and take this stretch one [game] at a time. But we definitely have some work to do.”
With the win the Jets give themselves some breathing room in the tight Western Conference playoff race as they are now eight points up on 9th and 10th place Minnesota Wild and LA Kings with a big game against the Wild coming up.
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