Winnipeg Free Press https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/humboldt-479737693.html?k=eFL9nz

Mark Chipman, Jonathan Toews deliver game-worn jerseys to Humboldt

By: Randy Turner

It was supposed to be a quick trip to Humboldt for Mark Chipman.

Pay your respects. In and out. Low key.

The Winnipeg Jets co-owner had travelled to the home of the Broncos on Friday morning, along with Winnipeg-born Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, to deliver the jerseys worn by the Winnipeg Jets and Hawks last Saturday — all with the Broncos name bar on the backs.

The jerseys were originally to be auctioned off for charity. But when word filtered to the Jets organization that players and family members of the Broncos expressed interest in them, Chipman decided the best thing to do was deliver them to Humboldt and personally pay his respects.

Toews flew up from Chicago to join Chipman on the trip.

They ended up attending the funeral of Jacob Leicht, a 19-year-old forward for the Broncos, one of 16 passengers who lost their lives in the accident that shook the country in the late afternoon of April 6.

Chipman said he was profoundly moved by Leicht's parents, Kurt and Celeste, in the face of such loss.

"They were so unselfish," he said. "It was all about the community. It was never about them. I've never seen anything like the strength this family showed today. It was just extraordinary.

"I don't know how this woman did it, but she stood up and spoke at her son's memorial service in the most incredible way.

"I think we've all been operating with a different perspective all week," he added. "I think today just put an exclaimation point on it. Just how fortunate we are. Just how fragile life is... a tragedy like that. It just puts everything through a different lens.

"But you go out there today and you look at the family, who would seem the most grief stricken. You could understand if they couldn't put one foot ahead of the other. And you see the courage and their faith, which they articulated beautifully. You see that and it just expands your heart."

Chipman's 23-year-old daughter, Annie, a goaltender who spent the last four years with the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks, joined her dad for the trip.

"It hits me as a parent," he said. "It hits her as a peer, as a young person who can relate to all those long bus rides. It hits us all in similar but different ways.

"I think we're feeling about this the way everybody else is. We're no different. You come at it from a perspective of a parent, or a hockey perspective. The whole basis of how important a bus is to a team. There's something about it that's very sacred.

"It's the Prairies, it's junior hockey, it's young men chasing their dream. It's so many things wound together. So it felt like the right thing to do was go up there and pay our respects, and let them know that our two organizations.... we're behind them on this. And not just today or next week but this is a community and a team that's going to need our support for a long time.

"I think it's going to take a while for it to settle in," Chipman concluded. "I've been trying to wrap my head around it. Man, I saw goodness, I saw humanity in a really remarkable way today." https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/attention-class-is-in-session-479757213.html

Attention: class is in session Jets school Wild in Game 2; time for Canada to take notice

By: Paul Wiecek

It was Friday morning, the Winnipeg Jets had just wrapped up their morning skate, and Blake Wheeler was answering the media’s questions with the customary blend of disdain and impatience he saves for reporters.

From the back of the scrum, a voice called out: "Mark! Mark!"

Wheeler — and the rest of an assembled pack — wheeled around to see it was Sportsnet play- by-play man Paul Romanuk, who was attempting to get the veteran Jets winger’s attention in what was (I think we can agree) an unconventional manner.

"My name," Wheeler said with a laugh, "is Blake."

Yeah, it is. And you’d think the guy whose one job, literally, is to tell NHL players apart would know the guy who scored 91 points this season, tied for the league-lead in assists, had an underdog Hart Trophy bid going for a while, and is the captain of a team now up 2-0 in its best- of-seven, opening-round playoff series, after a 4-1 rout Friday night of the Minnesota Wild at Bell MTS Place.

A Jets squad that needed a third-period comeback Wednesday to squeak out a 3-2 win in Game 1 never trailed in this one, out-hustling, out-muscling and — more than anything — simply outplaying the Wild from midway through the first through the final whistle.

A series that has been played in a Whiteout in Winnipeg now shifts to a whiteout in Saint Paul, where a record-breaking snowstorm began walloping that city Friday night and will greet the Jets when they arrive Saturday morning. A melee in the dying minutes of the third period suggests the temperature of this series will be running hotter than the temperature outside the Xcel Energy Center for Game 3 Sunday.

Who knows why Romanuk called Wheeler "Mark" on Friday morning? Maybe, he thought Wheeler was Jets linemate Mark Scheifele, although it’d be hard to invent two guys who look more different. Maybe Romanuk thought Wheeler was former Jets defenceman Mark Stuart, who the team paid US$1,458,333 this season not to play for Winnipeg (proving once again that, with dedication — and a painfully slow stride — it still is possible to realize your dreams in this country).

Most likely, Romanuk just got a brain cramp, staring at one guy while thinking of another, and making the mistake of verbalizing the thought.

That’s the point: with the Jets halfway home in this best-of-seven series, it is apparent the rest of the country is still struggling to pay attention to a team — and a city, for that matter — they’ve grown so accustomed to ignoring for so long.

Wheeler said as much himself a couple weeks ago, when he lamented, while talking about unheralded Jets rookie Kyle Connor, "Everything goes under the radar when you play in Winnipeg."

And so it still goes for a team that had the second-best record in the NHL this season, but apparently still needs to pin ‘Hello, My Name Is…’ stickers on its players.

It is not like this in other NHL cities.

Do you think Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid is ever confused with Leon Draisaitl? Think anyone’s slid up to Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby and called him Evgeni Malkin? You think anyone in the Toronto media, ever, for a second, doesn’t know exactly who Maple Leafs centre Auston Matthews is?

There is going to be a learning curve for this country this spring, in other words, and we’re going to have to be patient with them.

But they’ll learn, just as the Wild are learning — this is a Jets team that demands your attention like a Dustin Byfuglien shoulder to the chin (several of which have already been delivered to an assortment of Wild players in this series).

Canada — and its broadcasters — might still be sorting out Wheelers from Scheifeles, and only the most diehard hockey fans outside Manitoba would be able to tell Connor from the kid behind the counter asking if they’d like some fries with that. But you get the feeling it won’t be much longer before the whole country knows exactly who these guys are.

Any Jets fan in this city with a few grey hairs can tell you the boulevard of broken dreams that is a two-game playoff series lead for the Jets, who twice squandered 3-1 head starts in their 1.0 incarnation.

However, these are not your parent’s Winnipeg Jets, a quaint little outfit that would provide an agreeable playoff opponent most years, folding at the first sign of adversity just as surely as winter in Manitoba is followed by more winter.

The Jets were tested by the Wild in Game 1, and passed. In Game 2, it was the Jets who schooled the Wild.

They were faster and tougher, for sure, winning the little battles along the boards all night long. But more than anything, they were patient in a game that was scoreless until Tyler Myers made like Bobby Orr midway through the second period, rushing in from the blue-line and turning a couple of Wild defenders inside out before beating Wild netminder Devan Dubnyk to the stick side.

If you had the daily double of Joe Morrow and Myers scoring goals for the Jets in Games 1 and 2, respectively, you saw something coming not seen by anyone else in a rising sea of white. The customary 15,000-plus that were warm and cozy inside Bell MTS Place were joined by another 10,000 or so chilling outside at a street party that has doubled in size in just two games.

Third-period goals by Paul Stastny, Andrew Copp and Patrik Laine (his second in two games) put the exclamation point on the victory. Winnipeg outshot the Wild 83-37 through the first two games, sending them home on a plane Friday night with more questions than answers.

If the Jets didn’t have Minnesota’s attention before, they do now. With two convincing wins on home ice, in front of a crowd that is currently the envy of the NHL, the rest of the country should pay attention to Winnipeg, too. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/lowry-loves-to-draw-479757193.html

Lowry loves to draw

By: Mike Sawatzky

Winnipeg Jets centre Adam Lowry may not look like a grizzled vet, but his most recent work on draws has all the hallmarks of a savvy go-to man in the faceoff circle.

Since his first full NHL season in 2014-15, the 25-year-old’s faceoff percentage has gone from 47.3 per cent to 46.3 as a sophomore and 50.8 in 2016-17. In 2017-18, despite missing 37 games due to various injuries, he’s boosted his percentage to a whopping 55.9.

In Game 1 of Winnipeg’s first-round NHL playoff series with the Minnesota Wild, Lowry dominated with a 9-for-13 mark in the circle, including several key defensive-zone draws in the final two minutes with the Wild armed with an extra attacker and pressing for the tying goal.

That total, combined with Bryan Little’s 5-for-9 effort and Paul Stastny’s 10-for-14 provide a healthy advantage for Winnipeg (a 54 per cent team mark was lowered only by Mark Scheifele’s 6-for-17 effort).

"I think a lot of it comes down to experience," said Lowry following the Jets’ morning skate prior to Friday’s Game 2 against the Wild.

"The more faceoffs you take, the better you’re going to get at them. And bringing in a guy like Paul Stastny, he’s been one of the better faceoff guys throughout his career, so he’s definitely added to our group."

That being said, Lowry has noticed linesmen have changed of standard of faceoff etiquette since an early-season crackdown.

"They’re not kicking everyone out like they were at the start of the year," said Lowry. "Everyone kind of realized that wasn’t going to be effective, that it was going to slow the game down.

"Now, I think they’re doing a good job of trying to minimize guys cheating and trying to make them as fair as possible and still kind of keeping the flow of the game."

Is there less cheating now?

"I think you look at the way guys have to line up now, so yeah," said Lowry. "You used to take faceoffs and a guy’s whole foot would be over the line. Now it’s maybe just his toe. So I think it’s kind of pushed back and put some guys back on more level terms, I guess you could say."

Lowry also admitted watching a mastercraftsman such as Stastny, 32, who has a career 52.5 per cent record on draws, has been very helpful.

"You can learn a lot," said Lowry. "You see the way he prepares himself off the ice and just in the day-to-day things, the way he approaches every game and on practice days and the things he does to recover. He’s been so successful in this league for so long. It’s just little things like that."

"In terms of faceoffs, it’s important to have guys with experience, guys who have taken (faceoffs) against guy a lot. You can bounce certain ideas off of them. We use (assistant coach) Todd Woodcroft as kind of a sounding board and bounce different ideas off him."

And in-game adjustments, that helps if you’re struggling against certain guys. You can sit on the bench and ask, ‘What do you think we could do differently against him?’ That helps out later in the game."

Lowry was also asked if there’s one opponent he still hasn’t figured out yet.

"I didn’t play Carolina this year but last year Jordan Staal, he hurt my percentage pretty badly," said Lowry. "I’d say he was my Kryptonite last year."

BACKUP PLAN: minor leaguer Jamie Phillips has been recalled by the Jets to serve as the third goaltender for emergency situations in the post-season after bouncing around most of the season between Florida and Winnipeg. And he’s soaking up the playoff atmosphere.

"It’s awesome," said Phillips, who has 16 appearances with ECHL Jacksonville and 16 appearances with AHL Manitoba in 2017-18. "Obviously, the NHL is where you want to be and the level you want to play at. It’s an opportunity to help out and fill in whenever I need to. You have the best players in the world shooting on you, world-class goalie coaching. So I want to take advantage of it and next season, hopefully I’ll be full time in the (AHL) and take a few things from here and put them in my game." https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/dominant-display-in-every-way- 479756213.html

Dominant display in every way Winnipeg out-hits, outshoots and outscores Minnesota to take 2-0 series lead

By: Mike McIntyre

The pace was noticeably quicker. The hits were seemingly harder. The crowd was arguably louder.

And the performance was thoroughly more dominant by the Winnipeg Jets, who blasted the Minnesota Wild 4-1 Friday night at Bell MTS Place.

"The first game was amazing. A pretty cool experience. We played OK, but… we took a huge step (Friday). Now we want more steps," forward Nikolaj Ehlers said after his team held serve at home to go up 2-0 in the best-of-seven series, which now shifts to St. Paul for the next two games starting Sunday.

Winnipeg rallied for a 3-2 win in Wednesday’s opener, but turned it on in a Game 2 where you’d have expected a more desperate opponent. After a fairly even and scoreless first period, the Jets left the Wild in their dust.

Winnipeg outshot Minnesota 31-8 over the final 40 minutes (44-17 overall) and finally got some pucks past Wild netminder Devan Dubnyk.

Tyler Myers opened the scoring near the midway mark of the game with a highlight-reel goal. Paul Stastny, Andrew Copp and Patrik Laine then turned it into a rout in the final period.

Zach Parise spoiled Connor Hellebuyck’s shutout bid with just 45 seconds left.

All heck broke lose in the final seconds as a frustrated Minnesota squad seemingly wanted a pound of flesh. Daniel Winnik pummelled Brandon Tanev in a fight, and then Ben Chiarot dropped the gloves with Nick Seeler.

"Everybody got out healthy. It’s fine," Jets head coach Paul Maurice said of the late-game shenanigans.

Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau said it was about time his listless squad showed some battle.

"It tells me that enough is enough. It’s not a series until you get a hate on for each other and I think that was created toward the end of the game. Not even the fighting, the chirping going on back and forth. It’s a rivalry now," said Boudreau.

Minnesota was battered and bruised throughout the game as Winnipeg outhit them 38-23, including many of the bone-rattling variety. Defenceman Dustin Byfuglien was a one-man wrecking crew, leading all players with eight hits. The biggest was on Minnesota captain Mikko Koivu in the second period.

"Just another day at the office," Byfuglien said of his impact. He was also in the middle of the final-minute melee and admitted he was relishing a long-awaited return to the playoffs.

Byfuglien, of course, won the Stanley Cup with Chicago in 2010 only to be traded to Atlanta, which moved to Winnipeg one season later. Only one trip to the playoffs has come since then, a 2015 sweep at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks.

"That is one of the things I had to say. It doesn’t come around very often, so enjoy it. While you’re here you might as well give it all you’ve got. You never know what could happen," Byfuglien said of his message to teammates.

As for his thunderous hits?

"It makes me smile, I guess. You know that’s just part of the game. I just enjoy playing the game," Byfuglien said.

Maurice said veterans such as Byfuglien are really driving the bus right now for Winnipeg, but it’s simply a continuation of his strong play during the regular season.

"He’s played like that for a big chunk of the season but if you’re not scoring and you’re used to some of the things Dustin did, I think maybe, I know, his game was underappreciated this year. He played very, very well for us, didn’t score, and that seemed to draw a lot of the concern but his game was good," said Maurice.

"Cup or not, I think all veteran players on both teams, when you cross over the 30-mark you know there is going to be an end in sight. Anybody who has been in the league for a long time, the change in routine… the playoffs are a lot more fun. A guy who loves the game loves coming to the rink. This is a great time of year for him."

Minnesota did look dangerous in the first five minutes of the game, firing the first five shots. That included an early power-play opportunity. Hellebuyck came up big — and then sat back for much of the rest of his night as his team took over.

"They were playing great all night. We were putting the pressure on and that’s our game and we stuck to it," said Hellebuyck.

The Jets got an injection of energy with rookie Jack Roslovic making his playoff debut in place of Mathieu Perreault, who suffered an upper-body injury in Game 1. Roslovic skated on a line with Copp and Bryan Little and chipped in two assists.

"It was a fun one. Obviously, the building was pretty electric and there’s a lot to take out of that game. Once the nerves settle in, you’ve got to just play your game and just do what you’ve got to do," said Roslovic. "After the first shift, I sat on the bench, caught my breath and gathered my thoughts and I was ready to go."

Joel Armia moved to the checking line with Adam Lowry and Tanev. Once again the line made life miserable for Minnesota’s offence.

Roslovic made a great play on the opening goal, feeding Myers, who made a great fake on Jason Zucker to open up some room. Myers then cut hard to the net, beating Dubnyk high.

"Tyler played really well away from the puck and then he has that ability… he’s such a big man that when you’re checking him, you think you can shut him down. There’s too much of him to have him get it all by you. He’s pretty gifted, yeah," said Maurice.

Byfuglien set up the second goal with just over 12 minutes left in the third, giving Stastny a sharp pass from behind the net which the veteran centre one-timed. Copp’s goal, to make it 3-0, came less than two minutes later. Laine then finished up Winnipeg’s scoring with 2:02 left in the game with his second playoff goal in as many games.

"That’s the best situation for us. But it’s not going to be easy obviously. They’re a good home team, too, so we’ve got to be able to play our best game the next couple of games to get a couple of wins," said Laine. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/breaking-through-not-easy-to-do- 479754313.html

Breaking through not easy to do Dubnyk excellent last line of defence for Minnesota

By: Mike Sawatzky

Devan Dubnyk was the man of the hour (again) for the Minnesota Wild Friday night.

Unfortunately for the Wild, the 31-year-old puckstopper could do only so much for so long.

In Game 2 of their Western Conference first-round playoff series with the Winnipeg Jets, the 6-6 Dubnyk stood tall, stopped 40 of 44 shots and kept the game close until the third period before the Jets pulled away for 4-1 victory.

In Wednesday’s Game 1, he made 37 saves in a 3-2 Winnipeg win.

The Jets have now outshot Minnesota 84-37 in the series, which resumes Sunday night in St. Paul, Minn.

"He was good," said Winnipeg centre Paul Stastny, whose club held a 1-0 heading into the third period of both games.

"It’s playoff hockey — he’s got sound numbers, solid numbers... (It’s the) same thing — you’ve gotta get the puck to the net whether it’s second, third chances. Just keep peppering him, eventually they’re going to go in. We just stuck with it... the most important part is we didn’t get frustrated, we didn’t change our game."

The Jets had to be almost perfect to beat Dubnyk in Game 2.

Defenceman Tyler Myers broke the ice in the middle period with a clever, spinning solo rush from the point that required a pinpoint shot over Dubnyk’s pad and under his blocker.

"He’s great," said Winnipeg left-winger Nikolaj Ehlers. "Obviously, he’s a pretty good goalie... We always say we need lots of shots, we need to shoot. There’s no goalie in this league who isn’t good. So we need to shoot, get lots of traffic in front of the net and hopefully they go in."

Stastny made it 2-0 in the third, hammering a shot past Dubnyk after a lightning-quick feed from behind the net by Dustin Byfuglien.

Andrew Copp’s insurance marker was a superb redirect of Bryan Little’s pass and Patrik Laine completed Winnipeg’s scoring when he potted his second goal of the series, a ripper from the right side — also under Dubnyk’s blocker.

"We got a couple of those goals today, from pretty much in front of him," said Laine. "And we just gotta keep doing that."

Was Laine targeting Dubnyk’s blocker side?

"Not really, i just try to hit the net," said Laine. "I had a couple of good chances earlier but couldn’t score. I guess, I just gotta go a little further from the net to score."

Dubnyk is hoping for a reversal of fortune when the series resumes with Game 3 at the Xcel Energy Center.

"Yeah, I feel good about my game," said Dubnyk. "I don’t pay attention to the score, whatever happens. I tell you guys I always work on small things and being sharp and being on top of things as much as I can. I felt good tonight and we’ll try and continue that going home."

The Jets limited the visitors to five shots in the second period and three more in the third.

"The more aggressive you play, the more offence you play (and) I think the less defence you play and I think that’s been the mindset here," said Stastny. "If you turn the puck over, do everything you can to get it back. If we give up and odd-man rush, we have F1, F2, third man back. It allows our defencemen to be aggressive. I think a lot of times we don’t sit back on our heels."

Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau admitted Game 2 was not his club’s best work.

"Listen, we’re trying," Boudreau told reporters. "You guys are trying to make it sound like we’re not trying. They played really good, and they beat us tonight. We’ll be ready on Sunday. Sometimes the other team has the jump and they have everything going for them and they did. I thought Dubnyk was outstanding. We’ll be ready. We’ve got a lot of pride in that room." https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/street-party-a-site-to-behold- 479745623.html

Whiteout street party packed with worshippers praying for playoff victory

By: Doug Speirs

It had all the trappings of an old-time religious revival meeting, only with more beer, rock music and airhorns.

Inside the cathedral, Bell MTS Place, a sold-out crowd of 15,321 white-clad, towel-waving believers cheered in support of their hockey gods.

Outside, on the street, arguably an equal number of white-clad worshippers stood row upon row, shoulder to shoulder, staring reverently up at four giant TV screens and praying for another victory to bring this hockey-mad city salvation.

Outside or in, they all sang from the same hymn book: "GO, JETS, GO! GO, JETS, GO!"

Thousands upon thousands of fans braved sub-zero temperatures and bitter winds Friday night, packing Donald Street between Portage and St. Mary avenues to celebrate the Winnipeg Jets return to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The first Winnipeg Whiteout Street Party, wherein fans cheered their heroes to victory in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series against the Minnesota Wild, was such a hit, organizers expanded it southward by another city block for last night’s bash.

There was more of everything — food trucks, port-a-potties, giant screens, and people. Organizers predicted as many as 10,000 fans might attend, and it’s possible they underestimated.

"I’ve been in Winnipeg for 67 years and I’ve never seen anything like this," chirped Al Hurlburt, 67, chugging a beer shortly before Game 2 and surveying a crowd that was more a blindingly white blizzard of humanity than a mere sea of people.

"This is fantastic. This is why I’m here. I’ll bet there are more people out here on the street than inside the arena. It could be 15,000 people inside and 15,000 out here," Hurlburt said as he pressed against a wire fence to avoid the crush of humanity flowing past.

"For the city to embrace something like this, it’s unbelievable. You can feel the positive vibes. It feels like a different city. This is big time. I’ve travelled a lot and Winnipeg has hit the big time."

In keeping with Winnipeg’s beloved tradition of wearing white during the playoffs, street party revellers were decked from head to foot in white suits, white painters outfits, angel costumes, white face paint, and every conceivable manner of Jets jerseys.

One of the first fans waiting at the gates before the shindig began at 4:30 p.m. was staying warm inside a white unicorn costume, complete with rubber head.

"A unicorn is the luckiest thing you could have," Ben Bauer, 28, gushed from beneath his mask. "I’ve been waiting for the Jets to win the Stanley Cup for so long and it’s happening this year!

"I made a bet at the beginning of the year and if they win I get $18,000, so I’m extremely excited … It would mean the world to this city if they won the Cup. Everyone would be here (on the street). There wouldn’t be one person sitting at home. This one street wouldn’t be enough."

His buddy, Bryson Pluta, 27, who described himself as "the unicorn’s trainer," was one of many who said the street parties slated for every home playoff game give fans, especially those who can’t afford tickets, a chance to celebrate as a community.

"It gives us an identity and a reason to come together," Pluta, sporting white from head to toe, said. "When it comes to Game Day, we’re all Winnipeggers. It’s good to add some hockey back to our lives after the Humboldt (Saskatchewan bus) tragedy. It’s a way to heal — playing hockey and watching hockey."

When it comes to making a fashion statement in white, no one did it quite like Carol Fraser, 60, who strolled through the crowd in her wedding dress, complete with veil.

"This is a 1978 wedding dress," Fraser explained as passers-by stopped to say "congratulations" and ask her to pose for selfies. "It’s two hips and one husband ago.

"It’s the ultimate whiteout apparel. What could be more white? The moral is: When you pick out your wedding dress, pick one that you can wear to sporting events. I’m not even cold. It feels like we’re in a different city. Just the buzz and the excitement."

One of Fraser’s four sons, Ian MacDonald, coach of the Oak Park High School hockey team, laughingly rolled his eyes at his mom’s outfit and said the whiteout street parties are highlighting the best Winnipeg has to offer.

"It showcases us at our best," MacDonald said before puck drop, as the crowd began to swell. "Where else are you going to see this in Winnipeg? It’s the Rum Hut (at the Bombers games) on steroids."

Before the party really got hopping, along came 27-year-old Alyshea Mancini, protected from the bitter spring night by her warm and fuzzy Easter Bunny costume.

"I bought it because I have nephews and we had to do Easter," Mancini explained after doffing her bunny head for a brief chat. "This is perfect for the whiteout. It is so warm, too."

Like most diehard fans, she said the Jets’ success, and the huge street celebrations, are giving Winnipeg a big-city vibe. "It does feel like a different city," she said. "It feels like something exciting is happening here. It’s nice. We’re showing people that Winnipeg kicks ass, that we are a real hockey city."

The weather was unseasonably cold, but the fans at street level — watched closely by fans staring from behind the windows of Bell MTS Centre — were sizzling with playoff fever.

It didn’t take much to get Darren Sweers, sporting a funky white wig, to get onside with the religious revival analogy. "In Canada, we have many religions and hockey is one of them," he said, standing with his wife, Michelle, near the bustling food truck venue.

"This is where we pray to the hockey gods for victory. This gets people out, it gets people downtown. It really shows how Winnipeggers come together to celebrate just for the love of the game. It doesn’t matter how cold it is, because there’s a lot of warm people here."

Laurie Domes, 58, was one of the first people to arrive when the gates opened, despite the fact she had a coveted ticket for the game.

"I wanted to join the street party just to feel the energy and vibe," Domes explained. "It’s kind of like a revival. We are Winnipeg. We are the Jets. And we are here in full support. I’m embracing the ‘we-ness.’

"The game is the sermon. This is like a mission statement happening. Just like in the Humboldt situation, you get people coming together and people supporting. We are like a large Prairie town."

The well-behaved crowd was so excited they even sang along to the American national anthem — amid several airhorn blasts — but the shouts of "TRUE NORTH" during O Canada seemed to rattle the windows of the nearby hockey temple.

These Jets worshippers are thrilled to be back in the playoffs, but a Stanley Cup … now that would be an answer to everyone’s prayers.

Winnipeg Sun http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/jets-shut-down-wild-to-take- commanding-2-0-series-lead

Jets shut down Wild to take commanding 2-0 series lead

By Ken Wiebe

That’s what holding serve looks like.

Now comes the hard part for the Winnipeg Jets.

The Jets played a suffocating style of defence and got goals from Tyler Myers, Paul Stastny, Andrew Copp and Patrik Laine in a 4-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Friday at Bell MTS Place.

Zach Parise spoiled the shutout bid for Connor Hellebuyck with a power-play goal that came with 44.8 seconds remaining left in the third period, but the marker was merely window dressing.

With the victory, the Jets take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven opening-round match-up as the series shifts to the Xcel Energy Center for Game 3 on Sunday night.

“That’s the best situation for us. But it’s not going to be easy, obviously,” said Jets winger Patrik Laine, who scored his second goal of the series late in the third period. “They’re a good home team too, so we’ve got to be able to play our best game the next couple of games to get a couple of wins.”

The one thing the Wild have going for them is that they suffered the fewest regulation losses on home ice (six) this season.

“We just have to keep playing. We took care of home ice and that’s what you’re supposed to do,” said Jets centre Paul Stastny, whose first goal of the playoffs turned out to be the game- winner at 7:42 of the third period. “We know next game it’s going to be harder. They’re a good home team. They’re going to come out flying and that’s a fun atmosphere to play in. We’ve got to be ready for everything they’re bringing us.”

Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk is the biggest reason his team was in either of these games.

Dubnyk followed up a 37-save performance in the series opener by making 40 stops, but it wasn’t enough.

Had Dubnyk not been sharp, the Jets might be approaching double digits in goals for the series.

Instead, the Jets have outscored the Wild 7-3, with two of those goals scored by Parise and none from the top line.

On Friday, Myers got the Jets going with a brilliant individual effort, walking around Wild forward Jason Zucker and moving in before scoring on a wrister to the blocker side.

Stastny, one of the most important trade-deadline acquisitions for any team in the NHL, got loose in front of the net and buried a pass from Dustin Byfuglien at 7:42 of the third period.

Less than two minutes later, Andrew Copp redirected home a pass from Bryan Little to give the Jets some valuable insurance.

For the second consecutive game, Byfuglien was engaged physically and delivered a bone- jarring hit, this one on Wild captain Mikko Koivu during a Jets power play in the second period.

“We have a game plan, being physical is one of our strong suits,” said Byfuglien, who chipped in his second assist of the series. “You know, we just want to play fast, just be on the body. If the hits are there take it, don’t go chasing them.”

Byfuglien’s ability to change the tone of the game with his physical play has been evident in this series and it’s obviously provided a lift for the Jets.

“He’s just throwing his body all around the ice and it just gives us so much energy,” said Laine. “The crowd seems to like it, so we like it too.”

The Wild was unable to generate much offensively during the final two periods, as it was limited to only five shots on goal in the second and then didn’t record a single shot on goal for more than 15 minutes into the third.

“The more aggressive you play, the more offence you play and the less defence you play,” Stastny said. “That’s kind of the mindset here. If we turn the puck over, do everything we can to get it back.

“A lot of times we don’t really sit back on our heels. When we’re playing our game, we don’t give up a lot.”

The natural rivalry is definitely growing between these two teams and the bad blood arrived in the final 10 seconds, when the temperature rose, scrums broke out and a pair of fights took place.

Jets forward Brandon Tanev fought Wild forward Daniel Winnik, then Jets defenceman Ben Chiarot went at it with Wild defenceman Nick Seeler after Seeler cross-checked Joel Armia.

“It was great. Guys stood up for each other, and that’s what you want to see,” said Jets captain Blake Wheeler. “Things are going to get heated. That’s the way series go.”

While the Jets are in unfamiliar territory being up 2-0 in this series, the Wild has been down 2-0 before and it is not about to roll over in this series.

“Well, the message is simple: You’ve got to win four,” Boudreau said. “We are going home. Like other sports, you have to win one in the other teams building. Whether you get beat bad or whatever you still have to win one and it doesn’t matter if it’s now, the fifth, or the seventh. We have to take care of business at home. That’s all.” http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/bang-for-your-buff-d-man-is-jets-x-factor

Maurice's cone of silence

By Paul Friesen

They say everything ramps up in the playoffs, and that includes the paranoia felt by coaches.

Injury timelines, for instance, are now state secrets for Jets boss Paul Maurice.

Take the case of forward Mathieu Perreault, who injured his left shoulder in a Game 1 collision with Minnesota’s Mikko Koivu on Wednesday.

Maurice described Perreault as a “game-time decision” on Thursday and didn’t budge from that position 24 hours later.

“They all are. Everybody is. You are, too,” he said to the reporter who asked.

“Game-time decision” appears to be Maurice’s new mantra for any injury-related question he gets.

Asked if he could confirm Jack Roslovic would be the one potentially replacing Perreault for Game 2, and Maurice provided a simple, “Nope.”

Another “nope” greeted a general question about Roslovic’s abilities.

Roslovic, a rookie, did end up taking Perreault’s place in the Jets lineup.

Under the new cone of silence, it’s not even safe to assume a player who’s a game-time decision for Game 2 would be likely to play in Game 3, two days later.

“If somebody is a game-time decision for Game 2, it’s very likely he’s a game-time decision for Game 3,” Maurice said.

The coach’s exchange with the media took one last absurd turn, before wrapping up, Friday morning.

“If Jack Roslovic was the Beatles and Perreault was the Rolling Stones, what song would you be humming this morning?” Sportsnet’s Paul Romanuk asked.

Maurice didn’t miss a beat: “It would be all Led Zeppelin,” he said. http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/dandy-debut-for-roslovic-in-jets-win

Dandy debut for Roslovic in Jets win

By Ken Wiebe

It would have been tough for Jack Roslovic to script a more impressive Stanley Cup playoff debut.

Pressed into duty after Mathieu Perreault was sidelined in the series opener with an upper-body injury, Roslovic checked in and immediately chipped in with a pair of assists in a 4-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild that gave the Winnipeg Jets a 2-0 series lead as the series shifts to Xcel Energy Center.

“It was a fun one. Obviously, the building was pretty electric and there’s a lot to take out of that game,” said Roslovic, who became the ninth player on the Jets roster to get his first taste of playoff action this spring. “Once the nerves settle in, you’ve got to just play your game and just do what you’ve got to do.”

“Surprisingly, it didn’t take as long. After the first shift, I sat on the bench, caught my breath and gathered my thoughts and I was ready to go.”

Roslovic, who had four shots on goal and took 13 shifts for 10:14 of ice time, spent most of the night on a unit with Bryan Little and Andrew Copp after Joel Armia was moved to the checking line with Adam Lowry and Brandon Tanev.

Jets head coach Paul Maurice wasn’t ready to reveal why he flip-flopped Copp and Armia so early in the game.

“Top, top secret,” said Maurice.

The Jets have employed a next-man up mentality throughout the course of the season, dealing with a series of injuries to key players without missing a beat.

Friday was the latest example.

“It’s something our team preaches on, our depth,” said Roslovic. “The guy that is in can do the same thing. It’s good to help out and contribute on a win like that.”

Roslovic’s contribution was noticed by his teammates.

“He was really good. It’s not easy to come straight into the playoffs, but he played well and got a couple of points,” said Jets winger Patrik Laine. “It was a great night for him.” http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/veteran-hendricks-still-playing-key-role- with-jets-even-when-not-in-lineup

Veteran Hendricks still playing key role with Jets even when not in lineup

By Ted Wyman

He’s injured and it’s hard to imagine he would be in the lineup even if he was fully healthy, but Matt Hendricks is still playing an important role with the Winnipeg Jets.

The 36-year-old veteran NHL grinder last played on March 12 and is close to making a full recovery from a lower body injury as the Jets play the Minnesota Wild in a first-round playoff series.

Hendricks traded in his yellow non-contact jersey for a regular blue one during Friday’s gameday skate at Bell MTS Place, but is not expected to be available to play for at least a few more games.

“We had to get that yellow thing off,” Hendricks said. “It didn’t go well with my complexion.”

Hendricks is what you might describe as the proverbial glue-guy in the Jets dressing room. He’s the oldest player, he doesn’t score much and he can’t match the speed of some of the smaller, shiftier players on the ice, but he’s beloved everywhere he goes and has an infectious attitude when it comes to work ethic and positive thinking.

The 10-year veteran, in his first season with the Jets, said he feels no less a part of the team just because he’s watching games from the press box.

“For me and the rest of the guys not playing right now it’s our job to come in here and be prepared, be ready to go, be ready for practice to push the pace and try to make these guys better any way we can,” Hendricks said Friday, before the Jets took on the Minnesota Wild in Game 2.

“We spent a lot of time before the series started, our line forechecking like Minnesota, penalty killing like Minnesota, trying to give our go-to guys the best opportunity that they can have to be prepared for the opponent.”

Hendricks has played 34 NHL playoffs games in his career, scoring just one goal and adding one assist, and he was a healthy scratch for two rounds with the Edmonton Oilers last season.

Jets coach Paul Maurice appreciates just having him around.

“He has a an appreciation, as most older players do, of how good it is to be in the NHL and whether he’s in the lineup or out of the lineup, he’s in the room and he’s running the music a lot of days, and the coaches are happy about that when he gets the chance,” Maurice said. “So he’s like a present positive force in our room.”

Before the Jets acquired Paul Stastny at the trade deadline, Hendricks was the team’s fourth- line centre, but with everyone healthy, Adam Lowry (or perhaps it’s Bryan Little, based on ice time) is now occupying that role.

Still, Hendricks loves just being part of a playoff team.

“You never know when these opportunities are going to be taken away from you,” he said “You’ve got to enjoy every minute of it. Being in the playoffs puts a big smile on my face, whether I’m in the line-up or not, just being a part of it.”

Hendricks watched Game 1 with rookie Jack Roslovic — who was expected to play in place of Mathieu Perreault on Friday night — and tried to share some wisdom with the younger player.

He said both of them agreed it’s a lot more nerve-wracking watching a game than it is playing in it.

“You get the sweaty palms and you’re taking your suit jacket off because the armpits are getting a little sweaty,” Hendricks said.

GOALIE FRATERNITY Connor Hellebuyck and Devan Dubnyk are foes on the ice this week, but the two goaltenders became golfing buddies last summer.

Hellebuyck was in Kelowna, training to become a better goaltender (with great results), and Dubnyk lives there. The two struck up a friendship and spent some time together on the links.

“I met him in the summer and had a good chance to get to know him,” Dubnyk said. “He came to Kelowna for a few weeks. He’s a nice kid and he works extremely hard.

We got a nice chance to get out for some golf.”

The friendship is on hold this week of course, with Hellebuyck’s Jets meeting Dubnyk’s Wild in a heated playoff series, but it’s not like goalie’s get in on the rivalry act much anyway.

“It’s always a little different when you’re facing each other,” Dubnyk said. “You’re not shooting against each other, you’re not hitting each other, so you just respect that he’s going to play well at the other end and he’s going to do the same.”

Still, they’re not texting friendly messages to one another this week either.

“No, we’ll save that for later,” Dubnyk said.

TRAILING WAS GOOD Jets captain Blake Wheeler said Friday that falling behind 2-1 in the third period of Game 1 was actually a good thing for his young team.

“I think it’s a good lesson,” Wheeler said.

“It got us onto that … we had to get back on the attack.

“No matter who you are playing, especially when you are playing good teams at this time of year, you can’t sit back because they’re going to attack and they’re going to find ways to score.”

After the Wild scored twice in the first two minutes of the third period, the Jets bounced back, getting goals from Patrik Laine and Joe Morrow to earn the win.

“I thought it was real important to put it behind us quick and get back to playing the way we like to play. Being down a goal kind of forced us into that.” http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/a-victory-for-humboldt

A victory for Humboldt

By Paul Friesen

Mark Chipman’s hockey team wrapped up an impressive 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series on Friday night.

But the Jets chairman helped score a far more important victory earlier in the day, one that’ll have a lasting effect far beyond the final cheer of these Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Chipman and Winnipeg’s Jonathan Toews, captain of the Chicago Blackhawks, flew to Humboldt, Sask., to present the Broncos junior team with the game jerseys from the Jets- Blackhawks tribute game last Saturday.

What Chipman experienced will be as memorable as any playoff run his team ever goes on.

“I just took so much away from there, it hasn’t quite sunk in,” he said, back in Winnipeg, during the second intermission on Friday. “It was unbelievable.”

The original plan was for the Jets and Blackhawks to auction off the sweaters to aid the families of the victims of the April 6 bus crash that devastated the community.

A historic GoFundMe campaign, at a Canadian record $10 million and counting, changed the focus from financial to a more basic need: Emotional.

“Nobody saw that coming,” Chipman said of the money-raising campaign. “We started getting inquiries from people associated with their team who were really interested in them. We saw that the jerseys would have more value to them as an organization to do with them as they please. To give them to families or whatever they want to do.”

Jets and Blackhawks players played that game with “Broncos” on their backs, instead of their own names.

To hear that some families want to hang those jerseys in their homes as a lasting tribute to their lost children is overwhelming to the father of three.

“The whole thing is so hard to wrap your head around,” Chipman said. “I’ve been trying to come up with the right words. It’s so profoundly tragic, you can’t really grasp it.”

One family, in particular, touched Chipman and Toews.

There was a memorial service in the town on Friday for 19-year-old Jacob Leicht, a Humboldt native, and Chipman and Toews stayed for it.

Two things from the service stand out for the 58-year-old.

One was musician Paul Brandt singing a reworked version of the song, Small Towns and Big Dreams.

“I kind of held it together until I heard that,” Chipman said. “He customized it for their community, and that was really, really moving.”

Even more moving was to hear Leicht’s mother, Celeste, deliver a selfless eulogy in the face of such personal anguish.

“Listening to that mother speak about her son, and just the message she gave … that we could all take something from today, and find somebody that needed help, and do it in their child’s honour, was just mind-blowing.”

Chipman met Leicht’s father, Kurt, too, after the service.

“To see the strength of that family … as a parent you try and put yourself in their shoes,” he said. “And I don’t know that I’d be able to put one foot in front of another, never mind stand up and eulogize your child in front of an arena full of heartbroken people.

“Just the strength of her and her husband, honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

Chipman had his 23-year-old daughter, Annie, a former goalie at the University of North Dakota, along on the trip.

“She rode the bus for four years,” he said. “Like most kids who’ve had that experience, she was pretty rattled by all this. She asked me (on Thursday) if she should come along. I was a little bit worried about taking her, but I’m really glad she came.”

The tragedy has touched Canadians like few others, because it’s so Canadian. But it’s touched the world, too, and Chipman says he sensed how much the community of Humboldt feels and appreciates the support.

Sadly, all of us can take something from it, too.

“It’s so unfortunate that it takes that to cause us to restate the way we see things and be so grateful for what we have, and realize how precious life is,” is how Chipman put it. “I suspect this has reshaped a lot of people’s perspectives.”

Winning a Stanley Cup playoff game, sure, that’s great.

But there’s more to do.

“This wasn’t our team — this was our whole community,” Chipman said. “We were there on behalf of Winnipeg and Manitoba, and the Blackhawks and the greater National Hockey League. It’s nice to be able to convey, on behalf of our community, that we’re here for them. And not just today or this week, but for the long haul.”

You know that old hockey cliche, that you play for the name on the front of the jersey and not the one on the back?

For one team chasing the Stanley Cup, that perspective has changed, too.

Minneapolis Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/jets-go-up-2-0-on-wild-in-playoff-series-after-dominating- victory/479746273/

Jets go up 2-0 on Wild in playoff series after dominating victory Jets more than double Wild's shot total, drop it into a 2-0 hole

By Sarah McLellan Star Tribune

WINNIPEG – The most vulnerable segment of the Wild’s lineup at the outset of the playoffs was without question its blue line.

Stalwart defenseman Ryan Suter was out of the picture, sidelined for the rest of the season because of a right ankle fracture.

That meant not one but two rookies would be on the ice — a difficult challenge against the second-best offense in the NHL.

But through two games, the Wild’s defense — led by goalie Devan Dubnyk — has done an admirable job of keeping the team competitive with the Winnipeg Jets.

Its offense, however, has struggled to contribute to the cause.

And that issue only became magnified Friday when the Wild was rolled 4-1 in front of 15,321 at Bell MTS Place in Game 2.

The home sweep by Winnipeg was the fourth consecutive series in which the Wild has fallen behind 0-2.

“We had nothing,” winger Charlie Coyle said. “We need to do a better job supporting our D-men here. We didn’t do enough of that. We weren’t giving ourselves any way to succeed.”

After managing only 20 shots in a 3-2 loss in Game 1, including only one in the final 16 minutes, 2 seconds, the Wild had an even worse output in the encore — testing Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck only 17 times.

More that half of those attempts came in the first period, but the team’s inability to capitalize was costly — especially once Winnipeg amplified the pressure after a scoreless opening period.

“Not generating enough quality to produce any goals,” said center Eric Staal, whose line with Jason Zucker and Nino Niederreiter combined for just five shots.

A crushing blow from defenseman Dustin Byfuglien was the catalyst for the Jets, as he creamed captain Mikko Koivu behind Winnipeg’s net during a strong penalty-killing effort by Koivu.

That hit seemed to energize the Jets even more, and at 8:41 of the second, Winnipeg converted when defenseman Tyler Myers cut around Zucker and sent the puck by Dubnyk’s right side.

The Wild, meanwhile, struggled to stay in the offensive zone. Even connecting passes was a rarity.

“Too many broken plays through the neutral zone,” winger Zach Parise said.

Winnipeg, however, had no problem getting up ice, tacking on three more goals in the third.

Center Paul Stastny buried a behind-the-net feed from Byfuglien at 7:42, and then winger Andrew Copp tipped in a puck after the Wild failed to clear the zone.

Winger Patrik Laine wired in the fourth with 2:02 to play.

“For the most part, we were OK,” said Dubnyk, who totaled 40 saves, a career high for a playoff game. “We were down a goal, but you start doing things in the third period that just aren’t going to work against this team — turnovers on the wall, lost guys. There’s just too much firepower there, and that showed.”

A redirect by Parise with 45 seconds to go on the power play, his franchise-best 13th playoff goal, spoiled Hellebuyck’s shutout bid — one of only two shots for his line with Koivu and winger Mikael Granlund. The Wild went 1-for-4 with the man advantage, while the Jets were 0-for-2.

But it was too little, too late for the Wild, especially since the team had only three shots on goal in the third period, and the first came with less than five minutes remaining.

The team returns home searching for solutions ahead of a pivotal Game 3.

“We’ll find a way,” coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We have all year. There’s no reason to believe we aren’t going to find a way on Sunday.” http://www.startribune.com/wild-notes-jets-physical-play-comes-as-no-surpise/479756233/

Wild notes: Jets' physical play comes as no surprise

By Sarah McLellan Star Tribune

WINNIPEG – The Wild doled out a league-low 1,367 hits in the regular season, but it had no trouble responding to the physical tone set by the Jets in Game 1 — a vibe the team is prepared to keep matching as the best-of-seven series, which Winnipeg leads 2-0, progresses.

“Pretty much what we expected,” winger Jason Zucker said. “They’re a physical team. I think we have some guys that play pretty physical, as well, so I think we knew it was going to be kind of that way.”

Winnipeg was aggressive early, finishing checks and closing gaps throughout the first period Wednesday en route to a 3-2 win.

But the Wild matched that style.

“It’s part of the game and part of the process,” winger Nino Niederreiter said. “We have to take care. We can’t get bullied out there. We want to push back.”

In all, the Jets racked up 39 hits — reinforcing their status as one of the more bruising lineups in the NHL, since it dished out the 11th-most hits (1,831) during the regular season. The Wild had 31 of its own run-ins.

“I don’t think you put too much focus on it,” defenseman Matt Dumba said. “I think you’re just aware that you gotta make plays quick and put yourself in good situations to not get blown up. But I think that comes a lot with the first game and the jitters and just everything. Everyone wants to be contributing in some way, and that’s a really easy way to get yourself in the game by finishing your checks and making sure you’re being a force that way.”

Pushing someone into the boards, however, isn’t the only way the Wild can be physical. Being hard on the puck and gaining body position to protect it can be key to generating offense, especially when crashing the crease.

“If there’s a chance to finish a hit, you want to do it,” said Niederreiter, who had a team-high seven hits Wednesday. Only the Jets’ Ben Chiarot (10) had more. “At the end of the day, it’s going to give you room offensively. If you come over and over and over again, that ‘D’ is going to start thinking, ‘Not again, not again, not again.’ That’s something we have to create, and it’s not just going to be from one game.”

Big blow Center Joel Eriksson Ek absorbed the toughest hit of Game 1, when Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien leveled him with a heavy shoulder check. Coach Bruce Boudreau called it a “a great hit.” Eriksson Ek agreed.

“I couldn’t really see him coming,” Eriksson Ek said. “It was probably the biggest problem for me taking that hit.”

Although he exited the game briefly, Eriksson Ek kept playing and didn’t shy away from physical contact.

“Ekker is a really tough kid,” Dumba said. “He’s liked by everyone in this room, and when we see him get hit like that, it’s tough. You don’t want to see that. To see him come back and do whatever it takes to stay in this lineup is awesome.”

Minute muncher Dumba logged the most ice time he’s ever played in a playoff contest Wednesday, skating 30 minutes, 3 seconds — a game high for either team.

“Anyone who’s played more minutes and kind of feels that it helps them get the rhythm of the game and that flow, I think it’s easier for anyone to step in like that,” said Dumba, who logged a career-best 23:49 in the regular season.

Boudreau wishes he didn’t have to heap that kind of workload on Dumba, but he believes the 23-year-old only finds more energy when he’s on the ice that much.

“Like the [Incredible] Hulk, the madder he got, the better he got,” Boudreau said. “And with Dumbs, the more he plays, it doesn’t seem to tire him out. He gets more into the game.”

Etc. • The Wild rolled out the same lineup it used Wednesday for Game 2, while the Jets made one change. Winger Jack Roslovic subbed in for winger Mathieu Perreault, who left Game 1 with an upper-body injury.

• In support of the Humboldt Broncos following a bus crash that killed 16 and injured 13 others, the Wild is wearing Broncos stickers on its helmets for its series against the Jets. http://www.startribune.com/wild-finds-itself-in-familiar-0-2-hole-after-getting-overwhelmed-by- jets-in-game-2/479753693/

Wild finds itself in familiar 0-2 hole after getting overwhelmed by Jets in Game 2

By Sarah McLellan

This is a familiar spot for the Wild, which has tripped into a 0-2 hole in a playoff series for a fourth straight time.

The previous attempts to flip those early deficit into successful finishes went awry, as the Wild ended up getting swept by the Blackhawks in Round 2 in 2015, nixed in six in the first round by the Stars in 2016 and most recently overwhelmed by the Blues in the opening round of the playoffs in just five games only a year ago.

There’s still time to avoid the same fate, starting Sunday in Game 3 at Xcel Energy Center, but the Wild has quite a bit of work to do to make that a possibility judging by how its stint in Winnipeg went – a two-game sweep that finished with a lopsided 4-1 loss Friday at Bell MTS Place.

“We’ve been a great home team all year,” center Eric Staal said. “That’s what we gotta do. We gotta respond in Game 3 and get the job done on our ice.”

The Wild returns home with little to build off of after it sagged against the Jets Friday. Its start was fine, as the team put nine shots on net in the first. But that ended up being more than half of its total output for the entire game.

Winnipeg applied more pressure in the second, and the Wild didn’t have an answer.

Still, the team was trailing by only a goal in the third. A putrid push by the offense didn’t help close that gap. Instead, the Jets took over – scoring three times, the same amount of shots the Wild had the whole period.

“We just weren’t getting through the neutral zone cleanly,” winger Jason Zucker said. “I think that was the biggest thing. They were standing up on us and every time we got it in, we threw a guy on an island with one forechecker. We’ve got to find a way to hit guys with speed and get it in to get in on the forecheck a little better.”

Only three goals through two games is certainly disappointing, but it’s not surprising considering how disjointed the Wild looks trying to get up ice. The lack of execution is troubling. But not even being in position to generate looks might be more concerning, a problem the team can only hope gets remedied in the comforts of its home arena.

“We have to take care of business at home,” coach Bruce Boudreau said. “That’s all.”

Here’s what else to watch for after the Wild’s Game 2 loss to the Jets.

-The Wild will have last change on home ice, and maybe that will help spark the Zucker-Staal- Nino Niederreiter line. The unit has combined for just nine shots in the series and zero points.

It’s mostly been tracked by the Kyle Connor-Mark Scheifele-Blake Wheeler line, so perhaps Boudreau will try to steer clear of that head-to-head battle in Game 3.

“All the matchups were hurting us [Friday],” Boudreau said.

-Staal said the physical nature of the series wasn’t stoking the offense’s woes, but the Jets’ hits are undoubtedly a factor in them being up in the series.

For the second straight game, defenseman Dustin Byfuglien leveled a critical check – upending captain Mikko Koivu to interrupt Koivu’s bid at a shorthanded goal. Overall, it ended up being a turning point in the action.

“You’re trying to score and you’re around the net and you know he’s somewhere, but you can’t really think at that point,” Koivu said. “I missed the first one there with an empty net, and the puck just got away from me. I got another chance and I tried to wrap it around, and he got me there. But I thought it was a clean hit.”

-It took a while for Game 3 to end, with scrums breaking out in the waning minute.

Wingers Daniel Winnik and Brandon Taven fought. So did defensemen Nick Seeler and Ben Chiarot. Winger Marcus Folgino, defensemen Nate Prosser and Joe Morrow and Byfuglien were all tagged with two minute-minors and 10-minute misconducts.

“It tells me that enough is enough,” Boudreau said. “It's not a series until you get a hate on for each other, and I think that was created toward the end of the game. Not even the fighting, the chirping going on back and forth. It's a rivalry now.”

Canadian Press https://www.chrisd.ca/2018/04/13/winnipeg-jets-minnesota-wild-game-2-win/#.WtH824jwauV

Big Third Period Lifts Jets Over Wild 4-1; Winnipeg Leads Series 2-0

By Judy Owen, The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG – Connor Hellebuyck wasn’t laying any blame for missing out on a shutout in his first NHL playoffs by 45 seconds.

The Winnipeg Jets goaltender was just glad Paul Stastny, Andrew Copp and Patrik Laine scored in the third period to propel the team to a 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Friday.

The victory gave the Jets a 2-0 lead in the first round of their NHL Western Conference best-of- seven playoff series.

“Yeah,” Hellebuyck said when asked if he was disappointed in not posting a shutout. “But you know what, we got the win and that’s all I care about, especially this time of year. The guys played so well in front of me, there’s no fault.”

Wild forward Zach Parise scored his second goal of the series when he deflected a Mikko Koivu shot past Hellebuyck at 19:15.

The goal came on the power play after Jets forward Brandon Tanev was called for hooking with 59 seconds left.

Hellebuyck made 16 saves. Devan Dubnyk stopped 40 shots for Minnesota to go along with Wednesday’s 43.

Jets defenceman Tyler Myers had a goal in the second period and also picked up an assist. Laine added one helper and rookie forward Jack Roslovic, replacing injured veteran Mathieu Perreault, had a pair of assists.

Winnipeg won 3-2 on Wednesday, with Game 3 going Sunday at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

If it begins similar to the way Friday’s ended, it could be a wild match.

With 10 seconds left in the game, fists started flying and a total of 65 penalty minutes were recorded.

“We stuck up for each other,” Wild centre Eric Staal said. “We’re going to do our best to make this a series and compete. We’re going to come home in front of our fans and be ready to play Game 3.”

The Wild will have to ramp up a big segment of their play, considering they didn’t get a shot on goal for the last five minutes of the second period and the first 15 minutes of the third.

It was in contrast to the way they started the scoreless first period, surpassing the four-shot total they had in Wednesday’s opening frame with five by the five-minute mark. That included three shots at Hellebuyck during a power play with Myers in the box for tripping.

Dubnyk didn’t have to stop a Winnipeg shot until seven minutes had passed. The Jets then turned on a switch and had outshot the visitors 13-9 when the period ended, but many were from the outside.

Winnipeg got its first power play five minutes into the second when Jets centre Mark Scheifele was tripped by Wild defenceman Jonas Brodin, but it wasn’t their shots with the man advantage that sparked the crowd.

Jets defenceman Dustin Byfuglien threw two big hits nine seconds apart, the first on Wild forward Mikael Granlund in front of the Winnipeg bench, the second a slam that rocked Koivu into the boards behind Hellebuyck.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good look,” Hellebuyck said with a chuckle of the Koivu hit. “I’m definitely going to be looking at the replays because the crowd went nuts.”

Winnipeg only got one shot on goal on the power play, but the momentum — and hits — carried on and Myers scored at 8:41 to make it 1-0.

When the second period ended, Winnipeg had outshot the Wild 27-14 and were ahead 28-18 in hits.

“He’s just throwing his body all around the ice and it just gives us so much energy,” Laine said of Byfuglien. “The crowd seems to like it, so we like it, too.”

Stastny and Copp scored 1:42 apart in the third, with Byfuglien sending a backhand to the front of the net that Statsny slapped in at 7:42.

Copp made it 3-0 at 9:24 when he redirected in a Bryan Little shot. Laine fired in his second goal of the series from the right circle at 17:58. He also assisted on Stastny’s goal

NHL.com https://www.nhl.com/news/minnesota-wild-winnipeg-jets-game-2-recap/c- 297975846?tid=297171690

Jets top Wild, extend lead in Western Conference series Hellebuyck makes 16 saves in Game 2 win by Scott Billeck / NHL.com Correspondent

WINNIPEG -- Patrik Laine and Tyler Myers each had a goal and an assist for the Winnipeg Jets in a 4-1 win against the Minnesota Wild in Game 2 of the Western Conference First Round at Bell MTS Place on Friday.

Paul Stastny and Andrew Copp scored; Jack Roslovic, a rookie playing his first Stanley Cup Playoff game, had two assists; and Connor Hellebuyck made 16 saves for Winnipeg.

"It was a fun one," Roslovic said. "Obviously, the building was pretty electric and there's a lot to take out of that game. Once the nerves settle in, you've got to just play your game and just do what you've got to do."

Winnipeg leads the best-of-7 series 2-0. Game 3 is at Minnesota on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; USA, SN, TVAS, FS-N+).

"The first game was amazing, a pretty cool experience," Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers said. "We played OK, but … we took a huge step today. Now we want more steps."

Zach Parise scored, and Devan Dubnyk made 40 saves for the Wild, who have lost eight straight times in Game 2 of a series and are 2-11 in Game 2 in their history.

"The message is simple: You've got to win four," Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau said. "Give the other team credit tonight. They played real good. They won the battles, and consequently they had the puck."

A team that wins the first two games of a best-of-7 series at home go on to win 88.7 percent of the time (236-30), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Winnipeg outshot Minnesota 31-8 in the second and third periods, including 17-3 in the third. The Wild went 20:03 without a shot on goal, from 15:02 in the second period until 15:05 of the third.

Myers gave the Jets a 1-0 lead at 8:41 of the second period. He made a deke past Wild forward Jason Zucker at the blue line before scoring on a wrist shot.

Stastny made it 2-0 at 7:42 of the third period, scoring off Dustin Byfuglien's centering pass from behind the net.

"We were just trying to play it simple, throw a lot of pucks to the net," Laine said. "We've tried to do that a lot. We know [Dubnyk] is going to give up a lot of rebounds in front of him. So we got a couple of those goals, from pretty much in front of him, and we've pretty much got to keep doing that."

Copp tipped in Bryan Little's centering pass at 9:24 to make it 3-0. Laine made it 4-0 with his second goal of the playoffs at 17:58.

"We couldn't answer their momentum," Wild forward Mikko Koivu said. "They got the pucks deep and pressured our [defensemen] and we couldn't come with passes and clear the zone like we usually do. That's our strength and we've got to find that.

"Teams put a lot of pressure on you, and especially in the playoffs, and you've got to be able to support one another and move the puck quick and try to get the momentum the other way. We couldn't do that, and that's something we need to change."

Parise made it 4-1 on the power play with 45 seconds remaining.

Goal of the game Stastny's goal at 7:42 of the third period.

Save of the game Hellebuyck's save on Eric Staal at 15:05 of the third period.

Highlight of the game Laine's goal at 17:58 of the third period.

They said it "Listen, we're trying. You guys are trying to make it sound like we're not trying. They played really good, and they beat us tonight. We'll be ready on Sunday. We've got a lot of pride in that room." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau

"He's just like a wild card. There are very few players like him, very unique. [San Jose Sharks defenseman] Brent Burns maybe, in a different way, but he's played forward, too, in half of his life, also played defense. But he's always moving around, too, so that's what makes him tough to defend. Sometimes he might give up a chance here and there, but he creates more chances than he gives up, so I think in that sense as a forward, playing with him is nice." -- Jets forward Paul Stastny on Dustin Byfuglien

Need to know Parise (13) passed Marian Gaborik for the most playoff goals in Wild history. It was Parise's fifth power-play goal for Minnesota in the playoffs, which ties Gaborik on the Wild's all-time list. … The Jets acquired Joe Morrow and Stastny prior to the NHL Trade Deadline and each has scored a game-winning goal in the series. Winnipeg won Game 1 3-2 on Wednesday. … Byfuglien had a game-high eight hits. ... The Jets have won 11 in a row at home dating to March 2. … Jets forward Mathieu Perreault did not play because of an upper-body injury sustained in Game 1.

What's next Game 3 of Western Conference First Round at Xcel Energy Center on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; USA, SN, TVAS, FS-N+) https://www.nhl.com/news/jets-dustin-byfuglien-makes-presence-felt-in-game-2/c- 297979772?tid=297171690

Byfuglien has huge 'impact' for Jets in Game 2 win against Wild Defenseman excites fans with big hit on Koivu behind net by Tim Campbell @TimNHL / NHL.com Staff Writer

WINNIPEG -- Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien is often both the unstoppable force and the immovable object.

He imposed those qualities on Game 2 of the Western Conference First Round against the Minnesota Wild and helped push the Jets into a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series with a 4-1 victory.

Byfuglien energized an already wired-up crowd at Bell MTS Place with big hits and sharp plays, including an assist on Paul Stastny's goal at 7:42 of the third period that put Winnipeg ahead 2- 0.

"Just another day at the office," Byfuglien said.

Byfuglien (6-foot-5, 260 pounds) played 23:51, the most for Winnipeg, had three shots on goal, eight hits and three blocked shots.

It all was impactful, but a Winnipeg power-play shift during the second period provided more buzz than likely any other highlight from the game.

Byfuglien put a hard body check on Minnesota forward Mikael Granlund near the Winnipeg bench as Granlund cleared the puck down the ice.

Wild forward Mikko Koivu tracked down the puck in the Jets zone and after one attempt at a shot, skated behind the net. But he had his head down trying to control the puck and Byfuglien moved in and flattened him.

"It's just there," Byfuglien said. "I'll take it."

Koivu, no small man himself at 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, was asked how he got up.

"Well, you're trying to score and you're around the net and you know he's somewhere, but you can't really think at that point," Koivu said. "I missed the first one there with an empty net and I don't know, the puck just got away from me. I got another chance and I tried to wrap it around, and he got me there. But I thought it was a clean hit."

In Game 1 on Wednesday, Byfuglien hit Wild forward Joel Eriksson Ek when he wasn't looking, knocking him skates over helmet to the ice.

"He's just throwing his body all around the ice and it just gives us so much energy, and the crowd seems to like it," Jets forward Patrik Laine said. "So, we like it too."

Jets coach Paul Maurice said Byfuglien's game was underrated this season, when he scored 45 points (eight goals, 37 assists) in 69 games.

"He played very, very well for us, didn't score [much], and that seemed to draw a lot of the concern, but his game was good," Maurice said.

Stastny said Byfuglien doesn't get enough credit for his smarts.

"You're going in the corner, 1-on-1 battle with him, the majority of the time you want to let him go first but he's smarter than you think, too," Stastny said. "He knows he's a physical presence so he's almost wanting you to go first so he can use his body, and vice-versa.

"When you're a smart defenseman like that, I know he's a big boy, but the way he plays is very smart and the way he uses his body is very smart so it's tough to get on the forecheck. There are very few players like him. Very unique. … Sometimes he might give up a chance here and there but he creates more chances than he gives up so I think in that sense as a forward, playing with him is nice."

Cleverness and skill are assets for Byfuglien but it's often the impact of the collisions he's involved in that get noticed.

Maurice, who was an assistant for Europe at the World Cup of Hockey 2016, said several players were grateful when the United States did not dress Byfuglien for their round-robin game.

"I got about seven stories, it's 'Thank God,'" Maurice said. "And then they tell you the story, Tomas Tatar, of how Dustin at some point blew them up. And they were so pleased he wasn't in the lineup."

Maurice said that on the large majority of Byfuglien's hits, he believes Byfuglien eases up.

"He's been doing that selectively in the second half of the season, very, very well," Maurice said. "Very clean hits. I think you need to know he pulls off on just about every single hit.

"He's had a couple where he hit somebody, it might have been [Jay] Bouwmeester in St. Louis a couple years ago, where the feedback was it's a clean hit but there's gotta be a penalty there, it was so violent. He's such a big, powerful guy. He can change the way you think. There are certain defensemen in the League that you play differently as a forward, you're going to give them a bit more room and maybe move the puck a bit quicker. That just makes you smart."

The big hits are just part of his job, Byfuglien said.

"It makes me smile, I guess," he said. "You know that's just part of the game. I just enjoy playing the game. It doesn't really do much for me."

Winning Game 2 did get him excited.

"We have a game plan, being physical is one of our strong suits," Byfuglien said. "You know, we just want to play fast, just be on the body. If the hits are there, take it, don't go chasing them. We played a good team game and we stuck through it all 60."

CBC Winnipeg http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/jets-winnipeg-playoffs-minnesota-wild-nhl-1.4619161

Jets surge to 2-0 lead in playoff series while fan whiteout floods downtown A flurry of goals followed by a flurry of fists as things heated up in third period of Game 2

By CBC News

After a game that ended in a flurry of fists, the Winnipeg Jets don't seem concerned that their first-round playoff series against the Minnesota Wild just might have taken on a more heated tone.

"Everybody got out healthy. It's fine," Jets coach Paul Maurice told reporters in a post-game interview.

It took five minutes to play the final 9.7 seconds of the game after interruptions for fights that left helmets and gloves scattered on the ice.

"Ah, I don't think it's too much," said Dustin Byfuglien, echoing the nonchalance of Maurice.

Perhaps the reason for the unruffled responses was that the Jets won 4-1 and now hold a 2-0 lead in the NHL Western Conference best-of-seven playoff series.

Or, perhaps it was that other flurry that preceded the brawling — the one that saw the scoreboard lighting up in favour of the home team.

With Winnipeg up 1-0 and the game nearing the midpoint of the third period, the Jets blew things open. Paul Stastny scored and, before the raucous whiteout crowd could settle back in, Andrew Copp padded the lead to 3-0.

Sniper Patrik Laine got his second goal of the series about eight minutes later and the decibel level inside Bell MTS Place made the seats in the press box quake. The level of 114 db surpassed even that of Game 1, when fans released three years' worth of pent-up energy waiting for their team to make the post-season again.

Minnesota scored one on the power play with 45 seconds left in the game to spoil Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck's shutout bid. He conceded it was a bit disappointing but the win was more important "especially at this time of the year."

Another day at the office As for the rough stuff, Byfuglien was a one-man wrecking crew, plastering body after body into the boards.

And the rest of the team credited that with getting their engines revved.

"When he decides to lay into somebody, that's not a whole lot of fun," said captain Blake Wheeler. "He's a guy that can really turn the tide out there."

"He's just throwing his body all around the ice. It gives us so much energy and the crowd seems to like it," added Laine.

As for Byfuglien himself?

"It's just another day at the office," he told reporters.

Fans chant 'goodbye' The Jets were a bit flat to start the game and fell behind 5-0 in shots, but went on a tear to finish the period up 13-9. And by the end of the second, they had a 27-14 spread in shots, but only one Tyler Myers' goal to show for the effort.

Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk made save after save, ignoring the mocking chants of his name from Jets fans.

While the Jets offence found its groove in the third, the defence was nearly bulletproof. The Wild didn't record a shot on Hellebuyck until 4:52 left in the period.

That prompted a new chant from the fans who put their focus on the Wild's skaters instead: "Fifteen shots. Fifteen shots. Fifteen shots," they monotonously called out.

After Laine's goal, the chants became the song "na na hey hey, goodbye."

The game ended with the Jets outshooting the Wild 44-17.

Ocean of white Meanwhile, the fans outside continued their onslaught of Winnipeg's downtown streets, forcing the popular street party to expand by sheer popularity.

The inaugural whiteout street party, which shut down one block of Donald Street next to the arena during Game 1 on Wednesday, was expected to draw about 5,000. Organizers estimated there were 9,000.

So Friday's street party for Game 2 was extended by another city block and into the park behind the Millennium Library. The park is an alcohol-free zone with space for lawn chairs.

Two additional big screens were set up along the extended area.

The family zone was much appreciated by Dan Schmidt and his wife, Lindsay, who arrived early to get front-row seats by the big screen with their three kids: Sadie, 4; Jonah, 7; and Sawyer, 8.

"I think it's awesome. This is perfect," Schmidt said. "We watched the game on Wednesday [on TV] and we wanted to come out but we knew it would be bonkers and we have three little kids. When we heard this opened up, we were right away, 'we're doing this.'"

Despite the temperature being a tad chilly at –2 C when the game started, the Schmidts didn't mind.

"We put on some layers and put our white shirts on over top," he said. "And we know the deeper the Jets go [in the playoffs], the warmer it's going to get."

Among the party-goers on Friday were some impersonated guests of nobility. Queen Elizabeth was there with her honour guard and so was the King, as in Elvis.

The latter role was filled by Kevin Chabes in a full white Elvis jumpsuit and sideburns.

"It's time for celebration. We're here for fun," he said, adding he hasn't seen any other Elvises. "I always like to be a little different and have some fun. That's what it's about."

The royal theme was also carried by at least one knight and a princess. Other costumes included Star Wars storm troopers, a giant rabbit, a cow, ballerinas, jumpsuits, white wigs aplenty and hundreds of painted faces.

'It's finally our time': Jets fans go crazy as team wins 1st-ever playoff game The series shifts to Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota for Game 3 on Sunday and Game 4 on Tuesday. If necessary, Game 5 is scheduled for Apr. 20 at Bell MTS Place in Winnipeg.

Notebook: • Wednesday night's victory was the first playoff win in the current Jets franchise history. • The last time a Winnipeg NHL franchise won the first game of a playoff series was April 18, 1992, when the original Jets beat Vancouver 3-2. • Jets defenceman Joe Morrow scored his first Stanley Cup playoff goal in the third period of Wednesday's Game 1. It was also the game-winning goal — the first game-winning goal of his NHL career. Morrow was acquired by the Jets at the trade deadline from Montreal in exchange for a fourth-round draft pick in the upcoming 2018 NHL Draft. • Jets forward Mathieu Perreault left in the second period of Game 1 with an upper-body injury. He didn't play Friday. • Rookie Jack Roslovic filled in for Perrault and notched two assists. • Jets sniper Patrik Laine became the youngest Finland-born player (19 years, 357 days) in NHL history to score a goal in the playoffs, surpassing the Buffalo Sabres' Hannu Virta (20 years, 31 days) who notched his goal in 1983. • Laine's birthday is April 19. There is no playoff game scheduled that day for the series. Game 5, if necessary, goes April 20 in Winnipeg. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/jonathan-toews-delivers-nhl-game-jerseys-with- broncos-name-plates-to-humboldt-1.4618315

Jonathan Toews, Winnipeg Jets exec Mark Chipman deliver NHL game jerseys with Broncos name plates to Humboldt Blackhawks captain, Jets rep bring jerseys from Chicago-Jets game April 7 to Sask. community

By CBC News

Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews and Winnipeg Jets executive chairman Mark Chipman delivered game-worn jerseys with Broncos name plates to the Humboldt junior hockey team today, a week after the deadly crash of the bus carrying the players and staff to a playoff game.

The jerseys were worn during the April 7 NHL match between the Blackhawks and the Jets in Winnipeg, the hometown of three-time Stanley Cup winner Toews.

"I can't for one second pretend that I know what it's like for anyone close to this event, to know what they're going through what they're feeling," Toews said.

"But just to know the entire hockey world is there for them, support and love is there."

Sixteen people, including 10 players with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League's Broncos, died when the Broncos team bus and a semi-truck collided south of Nipawin a week ago.

Fourteen were killed at the crash scene, and two other people died after being taken to hospital.

"It's not hard to put yourself in that spot because ... you've been in that position for so many hours throughout your hockey career," Toews said.

"It's just really hard to think that there's tragic moments like this."

The Broncos were on a road trip to face the Nipawin Hawks in a playoff game.

The SJHL board voted unanimously Wednesday to proceed with the playoffs. The Hawks will host the Estevan Bruins on Saturday night in the first game of the league final.

Along with the 10 Broncos players, the bus driver, the team's athletic therapist, the head coach, the assistant coach, a play-by-play broadcaster and a statistician also died. The other 13 occupants of the bus were injured.

"Everybody wants to do something in some way, you know, and so and that's kind of what brought us here is just a desire to show this community and the parents ... just to be able to convey that you know we're behind them and hopefully that brings some small measure of comfort I guess," Chipman said.

Three funerals are being held Friday, for: Adam Herold in Montmartre, Sask. Bus driver Glen Doerksen in Carrot River. Jacob Leicht in his hometown of Humboldt. The first funeral was held Thursday, for 29-year-old Tyler Bieber, who worked for 107.5 The Bolt and was the play-by-play announcer for the Broncos. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/minnesota-whiteout-winnipeg-jets-playoffs-1.4618853

Actual whiteout over Minnesota could hinder Jets fans' playoff travel plans this weekend 'If you don't need to travel, you probably should take a pass on this one': Minnesota highways official

By Shane Gibson

While the NHL playoffs have brought whiteout conditions to Winnipeg's Bell MTS Place this week, a whiteout of a different sort may stop fans from heading south this weekend for Game 3 of the Jets' first-round series with the Minnesota Wild.

The Jets are set to play the Wild in Minneapolis Sunday at 6 p.m. CST, but CBC meteorologist John Sauder says a nasty winter storm expected to blow through parts the northern U.S. starting Friday could leave highways impassable for fans hoping to travel to the game.

On Friday afternoon, a Saturday flight from Winnipeg to Minneapolis scheduled to leave at 5:28 p.m. on Delta was cancelled.

Earlier Saturday flights at 6 a.m., 1:23 p.m. and 2 p.m. have not been cancelled.

The Jets usually fly to games. Spokesperson Scott Brown says they're still working on travel plans.

Sauder says rain starting Friday over Minnesota will transition into a rain/snow mix Friday night, and the storm could bring as much as 30 centimetres of snow to the Twin Cities by the time it tapers down Sunday.

"It's the last two hours of the drive that are going be really bad, so the earlier you leave the better," said Sauder.

"Going at six in the morning on Saturday, you're still going to encounter some weather at that point southeast of Fargo, but you're better off going much, much earlier, because the snow in Minneapolis is going to start piling up."

And it's not just the snow that could bring problems for drivers, says Sauder.

Temperatures hovering around the freezing mark throughout the weekend could lead to icy roadways, he said, and winds predicted to gust up to 65 km/h could also mean poor visibility for drivers.

"You're going to be dealing with some pretty blustery, wintry conditions."

'It's going to be a challenge' It's a forecast that has highway officials in Minnesota warning of the possibility of road closures.

"If you think about coming down from Winnipeg you're going to be driving across the flattest part of the state, where winds are going to have the most significant effect," said Minnesota Department of Transportation spokesperson Kevin Gutknecht.

"We'll have crews out on the roads and working on keeping them passable, but I think it's going to be a challenge."

Gutknecht says the state will close highways if plow operators aren't able to see through the storm well enough to operate safely.

In that case, gates will be lowered on stretches of the highway to stop traffic, he said.

"I don't know if that's possible, but it's blizzard warnings, high winds, heavy snow — all of the ingredients are there for a recipe that would cause us to think about closing roads."

Gutknecht said the trajectory of the storm — which will rip right through the middle of Minnesota — means there really aren't any alternative routes Winnipeggers can take.

"At some point of time you're going to run into that mess," he said, adding that after seeing the forecast, he wouldn't risk the trip.

"I understand wanting to come down and see the game, but I don't know — there's just something that would be comforting to me about knowing that I'm sitting on the couch in my house watching this on TV and not having to deal with the snow," he said.

"Far be it from me to tell someone that I know what's best for them … but it's going to be difficult for motorists to travel in that, so my advice is, if you don't need to travel, you probably should take a pass on this one."

Gutknecht says fans who are considering the drive should check hb.511.mn.org for up-to-date highway information, including photos of road conditions and live video from the plows out working to clear the roads during the storm.

Global Winnipeg http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-jets-whiteout-1.4616171

Winnipeg Jets win again for two game lead on Minnesota Wild

By Russ Hobson Sports Anchor/Reporter

WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Jets outscored and outhit the Minnesota Wild en route to a two game lead in their best of seven conference quarterfinal series.

The Jets defeated the Wild 4-1 in a physical contest on Friday at Bell MTS Place as the series now shifts to Minnesota for the next two games of the series.

Winnipeg came out hitting again and only got stronger as game two wore on, scoring three times in the third period for the victory.

“I think we were physical.” Paul Stastny said. “We took some hits but we just kept going. (Joe) Morrow had a couple big hits. Obviously Buff (Dustin Byfuglien) had big hits at different times.”

The final tally had the Jets recording 38 hits to only 23 for Minnesota.

“We have a game plan, being physical isn’t one of our strong suits so we just want to play fast and be on the body.” Byfuglien said.

“If the hits are there take it, don’t go chasing them.”

Byfuglien finished the contest with a game high eight hits including a huge one on Wild captain Mikko Koivu in the second period.

“His presence is really impactful on the ice.” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said.

“Going into the corners with him, he’s so solid, he’s tough to get a piece of. When he decides to lay into somebody that’s not a whole lot of fun.”

Stastny, Tyler Myers, Andrew Copp and Patrik Laine scored the goals for Winnipeg.

Connor Hellebuyck made 16 saves for his second straight playoff win.

The Wild managed only eight shots on goal over the final two periods of play and didn’t register their first shot of the third until there was 4:55 left in the game.

“You guys try to make it sound like we’re not trying. Like they played really good and they beat us tonight.” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said.

“They won the battles and consequently they had the puck and it was in our zone.”

“They’re a pretty good defensive team this year. You can tell they’re playing hard. Not that we’re not playing hard. They’re playing well. They’re going to be tough.”

Zach Parise scored the lone goal for Minnesota while Devan Dubnyk made 40 stops.

The Jets have now won 11 straight home games.

The Wild had the bulk of the scoring chances in the early going as they recorded the first five shots on goal. The Jets killed off a Tyler Myers’ penalty and came on strong as the period wore on. The jets ended up outshooting the Wild 13-9 in a scoreless first period.

It was a much better start to the middle stanza for the Jets. They recorded eight of the first nine shots of the period before Wild defenceman Jonis Brodin was given a two minute tripping penalty.

The Jets could only muster a single shot on the ensuing man advantage though as the game remained deadlocked at zero.

With 11:19 left in the second period the Jets struck for the game’s first goal. Myers stepped around Jason Zucker at the blueline, skated in and beat Dubnyk far side. His shot bounced off the post and in for his first goal of the post-season. Jack Roslovic earned an assist for his first career NHL playoff point in what was his first Stanley Cup playoff game. Ben Chiarot also had an assist as the Jets took the first lead for the second game in a row.

The Jets had a one goal lead after two periods. They held Minnesota to just five shots in the period while registering 14 of their own on Dubnyk.

The Jets extended their lead midway through the final frame. Byfuglien sent a backhand in front of the net and Stastny shoveled the puck past Dubnyk. His first of the playoffs was also assisted by Laine and the Jets had their first two goal lead of the series.

Just a few short minutes later the building erupted again. Bryan Little fired the puck towards the net and Copp tipped it up and over Dubnyk. Roslovic had the other assist for his second point of the game and suddenly the Jets had a comfortable three goal advantage.

Winnipeg would get some insurance with a little over two minutes remaining. From inside the face-off circle Laine buried a one timer for his second goal of the playoffs. Myers and Nikolaj Ehlers drew the assists to make it a 4-0 lead.

The Wild would break up the shutout bid in the game’s final minute. Koivu’s shot was tipped in by Parise between Hellebuyck’s legs. Brodin had the other assist to put the Wild down by three goals.

Soon after they dropped the puck the Wild tried to send a message as all 10 skaters on the ice got into a scrum in the Wild zone. Brandon Tanev dropped the gloves with Daniel Winnik. Just three seconds after they cleaned up the debris Ben Chiarot and Nick Seeler got into a scrap but when it was all said and done the Jets had a 4-1 win and a two game series lead.

The Jets made only one change to their lineup following the game one victory as Roslovic replaced the injured Mathieu Perreault. Perreault left game one with an upper body injury

The series now moves to Minnesota for the next two contests with game three scheduled for Sunday at the Xcel Energy Center.

Pioneer Press https://www.twincities.com/2018/04/13/wild-cant-keep-up-as-jets-bully-their-way-to-game-2- victory/

Wild can’t keep up as Jets bully their way to Game 2 victory

By DANE MIZUTANI

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — While an optimist might take solace in the fact that the Wild probably weren’t supposed to win either road game to open the best-of-seven series against the Winnipeg Jets, a realist would say maybe they simply can’t hang with the big, bad bullies from the north.

At least that should be the takeaway following Game 2 on Friday night at Bell MTS Place, as the Wild were held to three shots in the final frame of an embarrassing 4-1 loss to the Jets. They will return to the Twin Cities with their tail between their legs, trailing 0-2 for the fourth consecutive playoff series.

“We have to make some plays,” center Eric Staal said. “And obviously, we’re not. We aren’t executing quick enough with some of the plays that are out there. Not generating enough quality to produce any goals.”

It was complete domination from the Jets on Friday night, as the Wild weren’t competitive in the slightest.

“Give the other team credit tonight,” coach Bruce Boudreau insisted. “They played really good. They won the battles. And consequently they had the puck and it was in our zone.”

Frankly, one has to feel for goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who will be tagged with both losses to open the best-of-seven series despite standing on his head to keep things relatively close with basically no help in front of him.

“He’s played great,” winger Zach Parise said. “You’re not gonna win many getting 15 shots, 20 shots. There’s just not a lot of room for error. He’s playing great. He’s giving us a chance. And we’re not really giving ourselves much of a chance.”

He might be on to something, as the Wild were outshot 40-20 in Game 1, and followed it up by being outshot 43-17 in Game 2.

After a back-and-forth first period on Friday night, everything started to turn when big-bodied defenseman Dustin Byfuglien decided to set the tone, laying bone-crushing hit after bone- crushing hit in the second period, most notably crunching center Mikko Koivu along the back boards midway through the frame.

“He got me there,” Koivu admitted after the game. “I thought it was a clean hit.”

It was almost like the Wild started to play scared after that hit, and a few minutes later, defenseman Tyler Myers walked around winger Jason Zucker before beating Dubnyk with a shot to the far side to give the Jets the lead.

That was only the beginning, though, and in the third period, the Jets started to pull away with a trio of goals from center Paul Stastny, winger Andrew Copp, and winger Patrik Laine.

“We have to find a way to be better,” Dubnyk said. “I think we all agree we’ve been in good spots in both games. But I don’t think anybody can disagree with the fact that third period is not going to be good enough.”

Parise tallied a goal for the Wild late to spoil the shutout, and winger Daniel Winnik and defenseman Nick Seeler both dropped the gloves in the final 10 seconds of the game.

“It tells me that enough is enough,” Boudreau said. “It’s not a series until (both teams) get a hate on for each other and I think that was created toward the end of the game. Not even the fighting. Just the chirping going on back and forth. It’s a rivalry now.”

“We will find a way,” Boudreau said. “We have all season. There’s no reason to believe we aren’t going to find a way on Sunday. … We will be ready. We have got a lot of pride in that room.” https://www.twincities.com/2018/04/13/two-diehard-wild-fans-go-behind-enemy-lines-for-game- 2-against-jets/

Two diehard Wild fans go behind enemy lines for Game 2 against Jets

By DANE MIZUTANI

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Smack dab in the middle of an arena wide “white out” on Friday night at Bell MTS Place, a pair of forest green Minnesota Wild jerseys stood out like a sore thumb amid a sea of Winnipeg Jets apparel.

“I think I’ve counted like six other people in Wild jerseys since I’ve been there,” said Jen Broeffle, who drove six hours from the Twin Cities with grandmother LaVonne Wathen. “We left at 7 o’clock this morning, and we’ll drive back as soon as we wake up tomorrow.”

“This is the closest we’ve ever been to where they’re playing a playoff game,” Wathen added. “We just thought it made sense to drive up.”

Wathen thought of the idea about a month ago when it looked like a Wild-Jets matchup in the first round might be a possibility.

“She called me and was like, ‘We might be playing the Jets in the playoffs. Do you want to go on a road trip?’” Broeffle said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah. Let’s go!’”

So when the best-of-seven series became official last week, Wathen quickly rushed to buy tickets.

“I went to the Jets website the first day we knew we knew they were playing each other and there were only like 10 tickets left,” Wathen said. “I bought them right away. We know some other season-ticket holders went looking for them a few days later and they couldn’t find any.”

That isn’t surprising considering the overwhelming amount of Jets fans in attendance for both Game 1 and Game 2.

Still, Broeffle and Wathen spoke highly of their experience behind enemy lines.

“When I walked up to get my food the guy was like, ‘Oh sorry. We just ran out of burgers,'” Broeffle said. “Just stuff like that. It’s been a lot of joking around.”

“Nothing too bad,” Wathen added. “When we came over the border the guy asked us why we were coming and we told him that we were going to the game and he goes, ‘Oh I might have to shred these passports.’ I thought that was pretty funny.”

Asked whether they planned to keep their cheering at a minimum as some of the only Wild fans in the building, Broeffle quickly responded, “Heck no.”

“I’m going to be just as loud as I would be at home,” Broeffle added. “I didn’t come all the way up here to sit here and do nothing.”

Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/article-winnipeg-looks-to-channel-the-jets-of-yore/

Jets show their confidence with dominant 4-1 win over Wild in Game 2

By Roy MacGregor

Blake Wheeler was certain the second game would be different.

Two nights earlier, in Game 1 between Wheeler’s Winnipeg Jets and the Minnesota Wild, he thought there had been too much excitement, too many nerves, too much testosterone trying to establish dominance. It took a couple of periods for the hockey to break out.

Politely censoring himself, Wheeler described the first game – won 3-2 by his Jets – as “a cluster…”

Game 2, played Friday night at Bell MTS Place, was just as loud, just as much a “whiteout,” but far more hockey, much of it spectacular.

It also marked the Jets second playoff victory when, to the delight of a raucous sellout crowd, they dumped the Wild 4-1.

Asked in the morning how Wheeler, the Jets captain, would like to see Game 2 start, he quickly responded, “Ideal? Scoring a goal. That would be ideal. It doesn’t happen very often. Just winning a draw and trying to get a forecheck going, create a little energy…But ideal doesn’t happen very often.”

Instead, ideal appeared to be falling to the Wild. Game 2 was indeed different from Game 1. Minnesota wanted to make a statement early and they did, up 5-0 in shots and dominating during a power play – yet they could not get a puck past Winnipeg goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, he of the Vincent Price goatee and eyebrows.

Slowly, calmly, the Jets returned to the form they had shown in the third period of Game 1 when they came from behind to claim victory. They turned to their size, speed and skill and were soon outshooting the Wild, though they could not master goaltender Devan Dubnyk after the opening period.

“We’ve needed him,” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said of his team’s goalie before Friday’s match. “We count on him.”

Despite being unable to beat Dubnyk early on, the Jets continued to play with a playoff confidence not seen before by Winnipeg fans. A hard thing to do when you’d only made the playoffs once before, in 2015, and were swept in four straight games by the Anaheim Ducks.

This was different. They now had a win, their first, in the NHL postseason.

“Going into the one in 2015,” said Jets centre Adam Lowry, “we were scratching and clawing just to get into the playoffs. It was kind of new to all of us. It was the first time. It was just like the city – happy to be there. Just trying to soak it all in. Now, coming into this one, we’ve had a great season and there’s more expectation. We’re not just happy to be here, we’re looking to win some games and keep moving forward.”

“We’ve talked at length about playoff experience for our team,” Winnipeg head coach Paul Maurice said Friday morning. “We felt we had really good regular season experience this year and learned a bunch of things. But then you have to go through that process of what’s it like when you give up a lead. What’s it like when you get down and you’re in the third period. How do you handle it? The success that comes off winning a game – all of those are really important things to capture.”

That new confidence was shockingly apparent in the second period, when the Jets completely took over the game. It was not only the skill on attack, but the physical side on defence. Winnipeg defenceman Dustin Byfuglien – 6-foot-5 and 260 pounds – had Wild forwards cringing as they entered his territory, having seen teammate after teammate turned into rink-board advertising.

The crowd, already the loudest in the league, cranked up the sound.

Earlier in the day, Wild defenceman Matt Dumba had talked about how the ear-bursting crowd could play havoc with on-ice communications. “It can be tough at times,” he said. “Hopefully, we can control that tonight with a couple of goals.”

The crowd, however, got even louder when the Jets scored first. At the 8:41 mark of the second period, lanky Jets defenceman Tyler Myers twisted his way in from the blueline and pinged a shot from the right circle in off the far post that Dubnyk could not prevent.

Myers’ chance had been set up by young Jack Roslovic, dressed on an emergency basis to take the place of injured Mathieu Perreault.

“I’ve played in a couple of big games,” said the 21-year-old winger. “Nothing quite like this… It’s a beast of its own.”

By the start of the third period, the Jets held a 27-14 shot advantage, and the Wild clearly would have been in an even deeper hole if Dubnyk had not played so well.

The Jets continued to attack into the third and finally scored a second goal at the 6:42 mark when Patrick Laine, the 19-year-old Finnish sensation, got the puck from the back of the Wild net to Byfuglien – a defenceman, remember – and Byfuglien slipped the puck out to Paul Stastny, who flicked it high over Dubnyk’s glove.

Less than three minutes later, the Jets went up 3-0 when Andrew Copp was able to tip a goalmouth pass behind Dubnyk, with Bryan Little and Roslovic assisting.

Laine then scored his second of the playoffs to put the game away at 4-0 with only two minutes remaining when he one-timed a pass from Nikolaj Ehlers.

Minnesota finally scored on a late power play when Zach Parise tipped a pass from Mikko Koivu past Hellebuyck, but it was much too little much too late.

Little had said earlier in the day that he hoped his team could go up two-games-to-none against the more-experienced Wild.

“The first one, there’s always some nerves, some excitement,” he said. “That’s a good thing, too. Home-ice advantage in the playoffs, you have it for a reason. A perfect example is our arena. The fans are awesome.

“They give you that extra boost in your legs when you need them.”

They certainly did this night.

ESPN 1500 Minneapolis https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/sharks-jets-balancing-hockey-culture-racial-diversity/ (VIDEO LINK)

Wild give Dubnyk no chance to play hero, fall down 2-0 to Jets

By Matthew Coller | @MatthewColler

Down by two goals with 11 minutes left in the third period, the Minnesota Wild still hadn’t put a shot on the Winnipeg Jets’ goal in the frame. That’s how Friday night went for Minnesota.

The Wild were given a chance to stay in the game – and the series – via a strong performance from goalie Devan Dubnyk, but even during the first 50 minutes or so when Game 2 was close, it still wasn’t close.

Dubnyk, who entered the postseason with a 7-14 record and .903 career playoff save percentage, has performed exactly how the Wild hoped he would during the opening two road games. The veteran goaltender has stopped 76 of 83 shots between Game 1 and Game 2.

But the Wild scored just three goals in two games and put a mere 37 shots on goal. And one of the three goals came when down 4-0 with 44 seconds remaining.

Minnesota opened Friday night’s game with some burst, testing Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck with nine shots in the first period. From there on, the Wild didn’t get a sniff of the offensive zone. They were out-shot 14-5 in the second period and 16-3 in the third period.

Normally when teams are down two goals, they dominate the shot counter and their opponent hangs on for dear life. That was not the case in Winnipeg as the Jets’ supremely skilled lineup and solid defense corps kept coming in waves.

Up 1-0 in the third period, veteran center Paul Stastny worked young forward Joel Eriksson-Ek in front of the net for an easy tap in past Dubnyk. Less than two minutes later, the Wild turned the puck over, which led to a Bryan Little cross-ice pass to Andrew Copp to put the Jets up by three.

And even then there was no push back by the Wild. With just over two minutes left in the game, young winger Patrik Laine added his second goal of the series.

The Jets ended the night with 30 scoring chances to the Wild’s 11, according to Natural Stat Trick.

While the Wild are short on defense due to a Ryan Suter injury, the Jets have three pairs of defensemen rolling. Winnipeg’s third pair of Tyler Myers and Ben Chairot were on the ice for 13 shots for, three against and three Jets goals.

Up front, Winnipeg’s stars continued to crush Minnesota’s top six forwards. The second line of Stastny, Nik Ehlers and Laine also had 13 shots on goal to the Wild’s three, while No. 1 center Mark Scheifele had a 12-2 on-ice advantage in shots.

In the past, Dubnyk did not play up to his regular season numbers in the postseason, but under Bruce Boudreau he’s been good enough for the rest of the team to win. Last year he managed a .925 save percentage against the St. Louis Blues and this time around he’s kept them in both games. The Wild forwards and defensemen have simply been no match for the Jets’ talent.

The series now shifts back to Minnesota, where the Wild will need a massive turnaround in order to get back in the series.

The Athletic https://theathletic.com/313680/2018/04/14/russo-wild-need-more-than-a-return-home-to-fight- back-against-jets/

Russo: Wild need more than a return home to fight back against Jets

By Michael Russo

WINNIPEG — Look at the bright side, despondent Wild fans: At least the Wild are in a familiar position.

Nobody knows what it’s like to be in a postseason hole like the Wild.

Well, after the powerhouse Winnipeg Jets handed them a humbling 4-1 butt-kicking Friday night, the Wild find themselves in an 0-2 abyss for the fourth consecutive series and seventh time out of eight since 2013.

Sure, they’ve only come back to win one of those series — way back in 2014 against Colorado — but at least Wild players are taking solace in the fact that they’re returning home to a place they lost a league-low six times in regulation during the regular season.

“We’ve just got to be excited about being at home,” said Jason Zucker, the 33-goal scorer who, like most of his teammates, has been thoroughly smothered in the first two games of this series. “We know we’re a damn good team in our building and we’ve shown it all year. I think we’ll be ready to go on Sunday.”

Here’s the problem: A change of zip code is not going to miraculously cure the Wild’s gargantuan list of ills and be some magical elixir.

No, no, no, it’s going to take some serious, serious tactical adjustments from the coaching staff and a lot more will and courage from the players if this club has any prayer of overtaking the NHL’s second-best team.

So far at least, the Wild, now 0-8 in Game 2s and 5-17 on the road in the playoffs since 2013, have been severely outmatched and without answers in this best-of-seven, quickly-dissipating round against the bigger, faster, more skilled opponent.

“I feel like we've been playing on three-quarters of the rink for two games now,” said Zach Parise. “You're not going to win like that. I think our puck movement has got to be a lot better. When we do gain possession of it, we're not coming up the ice together, too many broken plays through the neutral zone, it's just not a lot of puck possession for us. We're making it hard.”

The Wild are being pushed around. They have Jets players in their faces every second of the game, and the Wild are getting hit so hard and so often, they’re having to pick their battered bodies — and pride — up off the ice. Because of this physicality, some players seem to be avoiding high-traffic areas to collect the puck. They’re barely able to string together three passes and, on the rare occasion they actually gain entry to the offensive zone, that alone feels like a victory.

“I thought they were physical the whole game,” coach Bruce Boudreau said. “They never let up right until the final whistle. We'll find a way. We have all year. There's no reason to believe we aren't going to find a way on Sunday.”

One game after registering one shot in the final 16 minutes, 2 seconds to see their 2-1 third- period lead implode into a Game 1 defeat, the Wild went 20:03 without a shot between 4:58 left in the second period and 4:55 left in the third period. In the final 43:41 of the game, the Wild had eight shots, including Parise’s power-play goal in the final minute of the third period that accomplished two things: Ruining Connor Hellebuyck’s first career playoff shutout bid and making the score appear more respectable.

But make no mistake, in the second period, the Wild were skating in one of the most lopsided 1- 0 games in memory.

They were that outplayed.

Yet, amazingly, they were one shot from tying the game because Devan Dubnyk was doing all he could do to keep the Wild in the game.

The Wild just needed to regroup in the intermission and muster up some save-the-season energy, resilience and execution.

Instead, the Wild went the first 15:05 of the must-score third period without even registering a measly shot on goal.

By the 9:24 mark, Paul Stastny and Andrew Copp scored back-to-back to turn that 1-0 lead into a 3-0 death grip.

“It’s not like we're not trying to get there,” Boudreau said. “We're trying to get there and the other team is not allowing us to get there. I don't think it's for a lack of effort. We will try harder the next game and we'll have a different little strategy and we'll see if it works.”

The Wild looked quite good in a scoreless first period, but everything changed starting the first shift of the second period.

Jets coach Paul Maurice slyly set the tone by throwing the speedy, hard-hitting, grinding line of Copp, Adam Lowry and Brandon Tanev on the ice against the Parise-Mikko Koivu-Mikael Granlund line with Jonas Brodin and Matt Dumba.

Not only were those five Wild players hemmed in their own end for the first 1:42 of the period, the Jets executed a full line change.

“We couldn’t answer their momentum,” Koivu said. “They got the pucks deep and pressured our D and we couldn’t come with passes and clear the zone like we usually do. That’s our strength and we’ve got to find that. Teams put a lot of pressure on you, especially in the playoffs, and you’ve got to be able to support one another and move the puck quick and try to get the momentum the other way.

“We couldn’t do that, and that’s something we need to change.”

The Wild, who have been outshot 84-37 in the series, couldn’t accomplish anything.

Carson Soucy once again had a tough first period and ultimately was moved next to Nate Prosser. Nick Seeler was moved up with Jared Spurgeon, who along with Zucker was minus-3 in his second game back from a hamstring injury.

The defensemen were certainly not aided by the forwards.

A microcosm of the Wild’s night was one shift in the first period when Brodin got the puck in the defensive zone. He looked up ice to pass to a forward and Zucker, Eric Staal and Nino Niederreiter were standing stationary 80 feet away at the offensive blueline.

“We have to watch video, but we’ve got to support our D more and be better outs instead of throwing the guys on islands by themselves and just giving it to them,” forward Charlie Coyle said.

Finally, Boudreau broke up the top line by moving Zucker onto the Matt Cullen-Coyle line and elevating Jordan Greenway, who had a strong game, to the Staal-Niederreiter line.

Staal and Niederreiter are huge concerns right now. They have a combined five shots and no points in the series. Both don’t look to be skating well.

“We’ve got to make some plays,” Staal said. “Obviously, we’re not. We’re not executing quick enough with some of the plays that are out there. Not generating enough quality to produce any goals.”

Added Coyle, “Neutral zone, it feels like we weren’t making plays. We were just throwing the puck up, either chipping it high. We had nothing. We weren’t giving ourselves any way to succeed.”

Zucker and Coyle also haven’t produced, and Granlund struggled mightily Friday. During one second-period shift when the Koivu line was finally generating sustained pressure, Granlund visibly kept reaching for pucks instead of getting in the middle of the fray to make a play.

It probably didn’t help that Granlund had just watched, in a scoreless game, his linemate, Koivu, get absolutely blown up by Dustin Byfuglien.

The hard-hitting Roseau native, who also crushed Joel Eriksson Ek in Game 1, caught Koivu with a thunderous check against the boards during a hard-working, shorthanded shift by the captain.

“It's just there. I’ll take it,” Byfuglien said. “It makes me smile, I guess.”

Thankfully, Koivu just popped back up like it was nothing and lived to see another day.

“You’re trying to score and you’re around the net and you know he’s somewhere, but you can’t really think at that point,” Koivu said. “I missed the first one there with an empty net and, I don’t know, the puck just got away from me. I got another chance and I tried to wrap it around, and he got me there.

“But I thought it was a clean hit.”

Finally, in the waning seconds, tempers boiled over when all 10 skaters on the ice got into a huge fracas in the Wild end. Byfuglien got into it with Marcus Foligno, Prosser with Joe Morrow and Daniel Winnik was confronted by Tanev.

Big mistake there. Winnik beat the daylights out of him.

“I think they’re taking some liberties on us,” Winnik said. “It’s hard for us to defend ourselves. All that stuff at the end, I think it’s kind of a situation where maybe the clock should run out, but they kind of start cross-checking guys, so that’s what’s going to happen. There’s going to be scrums. There’s going to be fights.”

That happened with 9.7 seconds left. For some reason, the referees didn’t run out that clock and another faceoff occurred.

Immediately, Seeler started throwing cross-checks after the puck was dropped. He was confronted by Ben Chiarot, and the two dropped the gloves.

“It tells me that enough is enough,” Boudreau said. “It's not a series until you get a hate on for each other and I think that was created toward the end of the game. Not even the fighting, the chirping going on back and forth. It's a rivalry now.”

Asked if he wished he saw that anger and fight before the 59:51 mark, Boudreau simmered.

“Listen, we’re trying,” he said. “You guys are trying to make it sound like we’re not trying. They played really good, and they beat us tonight. We’ll be ready on Sunday. Sometimes the other team has the jump and they have everything going for them, and they did. I thought Dubnyk was outstanding. We'll be ready. We’ve got a lot of pride in that room.”

We’ll see.

The Wild were beaten in every way Friday. In the end, the fans were having a big ole party inside Bell MTS Place, even “Hey, Hey, Heying Goodbye” to the Wild at the exact moment Patrik Laine scored a fourth goal to further the Wild’s misery with 2:02 left.

If the Wild don't discover some semblance of pushback and quality hockey back in St. Paul, these Jets fans won't see another playoff home game for some time.

That’s because right now, it’s men against boys and winning a single game seems like a chore.

At least the Wild get to go home to lick their wounds.

“We’ve got to find it now,” Koivu said. “We’ve been strong all year long at home and for sure now it changes in a way that you go home and you got your home crowd going. But that’s not an automatic thing. We’ve got to regroup here now and find the things that we did well, especially in the first game, and analyze the things that we need to do better and just go at it again.

“It’s all about finding that momentum when we go home and build from there.”

Eriksson Ek also survives getting Big Buffed Two days after getting Big Buffed by Byfuglien, Eriksson Ek said he was just fine.

“I’m all good,” he said before Game 2. “It was a good hit. That’s playoff hockey. I couldn’t really see him coming. It was probably the biggest problem for me taking that hit.”

Eriksson Ek, who got a three-game playoff taste last season, played a second consecutive strong game Friday night. His line with Foligno and Winnik was the Wild’s best by far.

“I think we played the same way, all three of us,” Eriksson Ek said. “Just tried to skate a lot, get the puck deep behind their D and be responsible in our own end. I know what to expect from last year. It’s a different kind of game compared to the regular season, so it helps to have a couple games under your belt.”

Dumba gets it, kinda sorta In a weird yet comical way, Boudreau compared Dumba to the Incredible Hulk after Thursday’s practice.

“He's not the biggest guy in the world, but he's like, if you've ever read comics, like the Hulk,” Boudreau said. “The madder he got, the better he got. And with Dums, the more he plays, it doesn't seem to tire him, he gets more into the game.”

Just in case Dumba was asked about the comment, Boudreau made sure to let him in on what he said.

“It's funny, Bruce caught me in the (hotel) lobby and asked if I had talked to the media yet, and I kind of brushed it off,” Dumba said. “He tried to explain to me the whole Hulk thing. I was kind of confused, to be honest. I guess by the end of it I kind of got what he was saying.

“I get it now. It's like the more I play, relative to the more Hulk gets angry, the more powerful he gets. I got it.”

Etc. Tyler Ennis, scratched nine games in the regular season, was scratched for a second consecutive game to start the playoffs. … Jets forward Jack Roslovic made his playoff debut with Mathieu Perreault sidelined by an upper-body injury. Perreault was checked a lot in Game 1, but it looked like he got hurt on an open-ice hit from Koivu.

The Athletic’s 3 Stars 1. Dustin Byfuglien, Jets: In a scoreless game, he crushed Mikko Koivu shorthanded and seemed to change the momentum of a tight game. He finished with an assist and eight hits.

2. Jack Roslovic, Jets: In his playoff debut, he had two assists.

3. Tyler Myers, Jets: Bounced back from a tough game with a goal and assist and was plus-3 with three shots and three hits.

Turning point With the game scoreless in the second period, Tyler Myers wheeled around a flat-footed Jason Zucker and skated all the way to the bottom of the right circle to score the game’s first goal.

By the numbers • 13 playoff goals from Zach Parise to make him the franchise leader • 2-11 Wild record all-time in Game 2s • 4 straight 0-2 series deficits for the Wild • 0 goals and points in the series for Eric Staal, Nino Niederreiter, Jason Zucker, Charlie Coyle, Matt Dumba and Jared Spurgeon • 5-17 Wild playoff record on the road since 2013 https://theathletic.com/313656/2018/04/14/lebrun-dustin-byfugliens-presence-is-taking-over-the- series/

LeBrun: Dustin Byfuglien's presence is taking over the series

By Pierre LeBrun

WINNIPEG — Rick Dudley isn’t one for smiley faces in his text messages, but it’s about all that was missing Friday night.

The man who first got to know Dustin Byfuglien as a prospect in Chicago while working in the Blackhawks front office then traded for the hulking player in June 2010 as GM of the Atlanta Thrashers.

Which, by the way, is where Byfuglien was encouraged to go back to his preferred position on defence after helping the Hawks win a Cup in June 2010 as a power winger.

“I believed he was a good winger, but a great defenceman,” Dudley said via text message Friday night. “And I also believed he was a very good team player. I never had a doubt what position he should play.”

Well, let’s be honest, while he’s a great defenceman, Byfuglien finds himself all over the ice, which is part of his effectiveness as far as the other team having no clue what he’s up to nor how to defend against it.

On Friday night, Byfuglien nearly tore the roof off Bell MTS Place with a thunderous bodycheck on Mikko Koivu, which nearly launched the Minnesota Wild captain back to his native Turku, Finland.

And there was Byfuglien deep in the Minnesota zone 7:42 into the third period, setting up Paul Stastny for the back-breaking, 2-0 goal in an eventual 4-1 Game 2 victory.

Just another day at the office for the 33-year-old Byfuglien, whose presence has overtaken this series early on. And the Wild have zero answers for him.

“He’s such a presence,” said Jets captain Blake Wheeler, a teammate of Big Buff dating back to 2010-11 in Atlanta. “Even if he doesn’t hit a guy like that, going into a corner with him, you know he’s there. It’s tough (for the other team). When he wants the puck, you can’t really do much about it. And when he sees a guy with his head down, he’s had some pretty big ones. He’s one of those rare guys that their presence alone can dictate the flow of the game.”

Mike Babcock referred to Shea Weber during Team Canada’s World Cup of Hockey training camp in September 2016 as “Man Mountain.”

Well, they’ve got their Man Mountain West here in Winnipeg. And like Weber, no question there’s an intimidation factor, which is accentuated at this time of year.

“He’s just throwing his body all around the ice and it just gives us so much energy,” said Jets star winger Patrik Laine. “The crowd seems to like it, so we like it, too.”

Stastny, for one, prefers taking passes from Byfuglien as a teammate rather than trying to avoid him as an opponent all those years in St. Louis and Colorado.

“I was always at centre, low and slow, so I never had to go in the corners with him,” Stastny joked Friday night after the Jets took a 2-0 series lead. “No, I think when he’s out there and he’s going in the corners, you’re aware of it and you don’t want to go in first. But at the same time, he plays a smart, positional game. When you play a smart defenceman, they don’t always go for the puck, they use body positioning. So sometimes as forward, if you’re reaching for the puck and you see Buff coming, you don’t want to put yourself in a vulnerable position. A lot of times that’s when he’ll use his body, and then he’s got a long reach to get the puck. Other times, if he has the puck, he kind of throws the puck out at you. A lot of poise in the D-zone, that’s something you notice. Strong on his stick, strong in the corners. If there’s a battle along the wall, more than likely he’s going to win it. If you do win it, you get punished.”

There are some people in these parts that believe Byfuglien is playing his best hockey since that Cup-winning spring in Chicago. And that’s despite a down-year offensively, at least by his standards, with eight goals in 69 games.

“His game was under-appreciated this year,” said Jets head coach Paul Maurice. “He played very, very well for us, didn’t score, and that seemed to draw a lot of the concern, but his game was good.”

Byfuglien is playing like a man possessed. Like a veteran player who understands that there is no tomorrow. That no matter how bright the future of this loaded Jets team may in fact be, they’ve got a squad that can win now. Right now. This spring. So let’s go.

And maybe that’s even more evident for a guy like him who this week enjoyed his first two playoff wins since lifting the Cup in Chicago.

Eight years between playoff wins.

“That is one of the things I had to say (to his teammates),” Byfuglien said after the game. “It doesn’t come around very often. So enjoy it. While you’re here you might as well give it all you’ve got. You never know what could happen.”

Byfuglien did a lot of shrugging of the shoulders in his media scrum Friday night. He’s not looking for the media spotlight. Just another day at the office, he said, not making much of his big hit on Koivu.

“If it’s there, I’ll take it,” he said.

To his credit, Koivu shook off that massive hit and certainly didn’t complain about it after the game. But what a hit. The Wild captain was trying to come from behind the Jets’ net with the puck for a wrap-around when suddenly the Buff Train shined its bright lights on him.

“Well, you’re trying to score and you’re around the net and you know he’s somewhere, but you can’t really think at that point,” Koivu said. “I missed the first one there with an empty net and, I don’t know, the puck just got away from me. I got another chance and I tried to wrap it around, and he got me there. But I thought it was a clean hit.”

The Jets as a team once again imposed themselves physically on the Wild.

“We have a game plan, being physical is one of our strong suits,” said Byfuglien. “You know, we just want to play fast, just be on the body. If the hits are there, take it; don’t go chasing them. We played a good team game and we stuck through it all 60.”

The man who wears an 'A' on his sweater is dialed in. Which is horrible news for the Wild and any other team that stands in Winnipeg’s way this spring.

Which brings a smile to the face of the man who brought him to this organization eight years ago.

“I am just happy for him because he was always a good kid when he was a young rookie,” Dudley said. “And now that he’s an established star I do not believe he will ever change.”

Sportsnet.ca https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/evander-kane-trade-continuing-bear-fruit-cheveldayoff-jets/

Evander Kane trade continuing to bear fruit for Cheveldayoff, Jets

By Luke Fox

WINNIPEG — Kevin Cheveldayoff couldn’t help but smile Friday night as he walked around the bowels of MTS Place, the building with the greatest home ice advantage in the league.

The club he’d constructed with his oft-criticized patience had just doubled its franchise playoff victory total and become the first of these playoffs to seize a 2-0 series lead.

A master of the long game, and probably not the type of man you’d like to meet in a staring contest, Cheveldayoff waited three years and seven months on the job before pulling the trigger on his first player-for-player trade of consequence.

Evander Kane, Zach Bogosian, and Jason Kasdorf to Buffalo for Tyler Myers, Drew Stafford, Joel Armia, Brendan Lemieux and the Sabres’ 2015 first-round pick.

That 2015 blockbuster puts the lie to the theory that whoever lands the best player wins the deal, and with the benefit of hindsight, is embarrassing in its lopsidedness.

The other willing participant in the pillage, Tim Murray, was the quickest Sabres GM to be fired. Kane—viewed in these parts as cultural addition by subtraction—scored two playoff goals Thursday, but for San Jose. Bogosian would be a great buyout candidate were he not stuck on the injured reserve. And goalie prospect Kasdorf had a respectable .903 save percentage this season… in the ECHL.

Cheveldayoff’s haul that day? Well, three of them contributed to Friday’s 4-1 stomping of the Wild. Stafford gave Winnipeg two good years before becoming a sixth-rounder in the upcoming draft, and 22-year-old Lemieux was nearly a point per game for the mighty Manitoba Moose this season.

It’s a trade tree keeps bearing delicious fruit and may well define the GM’s legacy.

When Myers, hockey’s lankiest man not named Zdeno Chara, controlled the puck at the point in the second period of a scoreless Game 2 and decided to take a risk, Jets coach Paul Maurice held his breath so long, he’d later quip, “I’m pretty sure I can’t be drowned.”

From a standstill and with no safety net behind him, Myers dangled a defending Jason Zucker, held off an ineffective Eric Staal and sniped a gorgeous opening goal far side on a dialed-in Devan Dubnyk.

“Tyler played really well away from the puck and then he has that ability,” Maurice said. “He’s such a big man that when you’re checking him, you think you can shut him down. There’s too much of him to have him get it all by you. He’s pretty gifted.”

Also gifted: speedy Jack Roslovic, whose control on the cycle led to him assisting on the Myers strike as well as orchestrating Andrew Copp’s goal the following period. Two assists—not bad for a rookie’s emergency NHL playoff debut.

Roslovic, drawing in seamlessly for the injured Mathieu Perreault (upper body), was selected by Cheveldayoff with that first-round pick the Sabres surrendered in their package for Kane.

“When Jack had played well for us, it said that [Moose coach] Pascal Vincent earned his award [as the AHL’s most outstanding coach] this year. He does a marvelous job taking those young players so when they come to play for us there isn’t a lot that’s said about where he needs to be on the ice, positionally,” said Maurice, adding that Roslovic has rapidly earned the respect of veteran linemates Bryan Little and Copp.

So much praise has been showered on the reborn Jets for their draft-and-develop approach, and justly so.

But with Myers and Roslovic both hanging multi-point games Friday—and, looky here, trade deadline swipe Paul Stastny scored his first playoff goal, too—it sure felt like a night to celebrate Cheveldayoff’s success rate on those rare occasions where he does dabble in the market. https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/jets-appear-big-fast-much-wild/

Jets appear to be too big, too fast and too much for Wild

By Mark Spector

WINNIPEG — “Listen, we’re tryin’.”

Minnesota Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau stood in that unenviable, impossible spot behind the podium after a 4-1 loss in Winnipeg, trying to explain a game that saw his team’s shot totals descend from nine in the first period, to five in the second, to three in the final stanza.

The Winnipeg Jets had just kicked Minnesota’s hind ends to Portage and Main and back, and there was Boudreau, fielding the questions about what plan he had to turn the battleship around in time for Game 3 on Sunday.

The problem is, there’s no real answer.

“You guys are trying to make it sound like we’re not tryin’,” he said to the Minnesota press, grilling poor Boudreau like a summer rib eye. “They played really good, and they beat us tonight. We’ll be ready on Sunday. We’ve got a lot of pride in that room.”

Media: “What happened after the first period?”

Boudreau: “Well, they were playing pretty good. Give the other team credit tonight. They played really good. They won the battles, and consequently they had the puck and it was in our zone.”

Media: “What about getting into the middle more?”

Boudreau: “It’s not like we’re not trying to get there. We’re trying to get there and the other team is not allowing us to get there. I don’t think it’s for a lack of effort. We will try harder the next game and we’ll have a different little strategy and we’ll see if it works.

Media: “What did you think of your matchups, coach?”

Boudreau: “I think all the matchups were hurting us tonight.”

And so it went, the media chasing the magical, elusive elixir, the way the Wild had chased Winnipeg around the Minnesota zone for most of 60 minutes in Game 2.

Too big. Too fast. Too deep, and just too much, these Jets appear to be for the boys from Minny.

They’ve played six periods of hockey in this Round 1 series, and Minnesota’s leading scorer — 42-goal man Eric Staal — has three shots on goal and less points (zero) than Jack Roslovic (two) and Joe Morrow (one).

From the blazing fast Nikolaj Ehlers, to that Finnish rifleman Patrik Laine, to a six-foot-five set- up man in Blake Wheeler who spins away from checks like he’s Patrick Kane, this was a clinic on what the Winnipeg Jets can do to you when they have all hands on deck.

Dustin Byfuglien was an absolute terror, a reminder of the value of big, physical players when the game shifts into playoff mode. Small speedsters may be fine all season long, but come springtime guys like Byfuglien can change a game, as his mighty hits and thunderous presence did in Game 2.

“He’s just a wild card. There are very few players like him,” marvelled Jets centre Paul Stastny. “Brent Burns maybe? … But (Byfuglien) is always moving around, too, so that’s what makes him tough to defend. He might give up a chance here and there, but he creates more chances than he gives up.”

There is something solid, something genuine about this Winnipeg team, a quality that Canadians may just be beginning to realize as they tune in to Jets hockey in earnest for the first time. Winnipeg has a way of owning the puck, like the big kid at the outdoor rink who could steal your puck and keep it for as long as he wanted to.

The Jets control the play in the opponent’s zone for an entire shift, and when the other team finally gets the puck on its stick they are gassed. So they dump it out, the Jets get it again. It’s the old rinse and repeat, and now the Wild have to find a way out of the spin cycle.

They’ve had momentum for about five minutes so far in this series.

“We’ve got to find it now,” said Mikko Koivu, of the famous hockey family from Turku, Finland. “We’ve been strong all year long at home and for sure now it changes — you go home and you got your home crowd going. But that’s not an automatic thing. We’ve got to regroup here.”

No one is quitting, of course, in a Wild room full of professionals. But being a pro also means you’ve traveled this road before, seen a similar movie somewhere down the line, and you know what it means to be without defenceman Ryan Suter and the 26:46 of quality defensive ice time each night.

You look across at these Jets and see four solid lines, a defence that moves the puck north as swiftly and accurately as any, and a goalie who… Well, we don’t know much about Connor Hellebuyck in the playoffs yet.

The Wild managed just 37 shots through six periods here, while the Jets have enjoyed back to back 40-shot nights.

“They’re a pretty good defensive team this year,” observed Boudreau. “You can tell they’re playing hard. They’re playing well.

“They’re going to be tough.” https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/feels-stuck-winnipeg-whiteout/

How it feels to be stuck in a Winnipeg Whiteout

By Luke Fox

WINNIPEG – When I ran into Canada’s Minster of International Trade in the elevator of an old Winnipeg hotel — y’know, as one does — the Honourable Francois-Philippe Champagne said he was concerned all day Wednesday.

He’d been informed a Whiteout was invading the Prairie city at the same time as his business trip. The politician’s safety worries were relieved when the details of this particular brand of Whiteout were explained to him. Once he saw what all of Canada witnessed Wednesday night, he bought in to the fervour.

Champagne may not be a hockey fanatic, but the power of happy people flooding the street and filling the arena with a shared hope, a loud voice and silly costumes, well, it’s contagious. Enough that he wanted to chat with a stranger in an elevator about the wonderful spectacle he’d witnessed.

Head-to-toe white jumpsuits, ZZ Top–style beards, chalky wigs, 15,321 whipping towels stamped with the claim “We Are Winnipeg,” road-white replica jerseys galore, makeshift fighter jet pilot helmets, white Christmas lights worn as body necklaces, more expended tubes of clown-white face paint than a mime convention … Jets fans don’t just show their pride, they dunk themselves in it and then mosh in your face and make merry.

“I was trying to find a word for it. Electrifying? I dunno,” said Jets defenceman Joe Morrow, who only scored the first playoff game-winner in franchise history.

“People filled both bowls for the warmup of a game. You never see that. Every chance you get, they’re cheering as loud as they can, pouring their hearts and souls into the ice. All that funnels down to us and that really does make a huge difference. My first Whiteout experience will be one I’ll never forget.”

Winnipeg’s Whiteout harkens back to 1987, when supporters of the original Jets were encouraged to wear white to home playoff games to build an intimidating backdrop for the visiting Flames — a colourless response to Calgary’s C of Red. The Jets won that series in six, and a tradition was born.

When the franchise relocated to Glendale, Ariz., the Whiteout migrated west. Former Jets AHL affiliate, the St. John’s IceCaps, brought it east. Current farm team, the Manitoba Moose, have dabbled with it too. And when Canada faced off for gold against Russia at the 1999 world juniors, host Winnipeg turned out looking whiter than Jerry Seinfeld’s sneakers.

The success of the Whiteout, however, is debatable. The former Jets franchise never won anything more prestigious than an Avco Cup. This edition got swept by the Ducks in its first trip to the dance, back in 2015. And red machine Russia won that ’99 gold medal.

Now that the NHL has done away with home whites and the Jets actually wear blue at MTS Place — petition pending — the Whiteout doesn’t quite sync up aesthetically the way it did in Dave Ellett’s glory days.

Seeing this crowd’s effects on a team that’s Cup-contender good, however, may turn you into a believer. The Jets came into the post-season with the best home record in hockey (32-7-2), they start better than any other team (30-2 when leading after one period), and they feed off their seventh man — who just won’t shut up.

Goalie Connor Hellebuyck says just thinking about the crowd gives him butterflies. Jacob Trouba says he has to try hard to not get caught up and keep his focus on the play. Blake Wheeler says he loves feeding off their energy.

On Wednesday, close icings in the first period were booed with lust; officials were reminded how much they suck at not-so-subtle volume; each key save or crushing Byfuglien body check was celebrated to touchdown-esque levels; and goals for the good guys were punctuated by plumes of dry ice puking from underneath the Jumbotron and culminated in unadulterated frenzy. The Wave happened, sans irony.

Walls can’t contain all that joy, so it spills outside — where it’s cheaper. The open, free-of- charge party on Donald Street is costing True North Sports & Entertainment an estimated $20,000 each evening to produce, but the costs are figured to be recouped in merchandise, food and beverage sales and corporate activations.

Spreading further, elementary schools have held their own mini Whiteouts.

“This is a special place,” Jets coach Paul Maurice says. “We’ve got a camera, and when the doors opened at clearly at 5 o’clock [for a 6 p.m. puck drop], they got the memo wrong. Thought the game was starting. That’s the best warmup crowd we’ve ever had, and they were wired from the start.”

Later, when Patrik Laine wristed a rocket over Devan Dubnyk’s glove for the first playoff goal of his NHL career, tying Game 1 and cueing the comeback, the decibel level inside the barn exceeded 108, which is akin to putting your head beside a riveting machine. The average human pain threshold is 110.

From the nosebleeders, it became impossible to hear yourself think, unless your thought was, Boy, sure is loud, eh?

“The atmosphere was just like the place exploded,” Laine says. “I was saving my goals and celebrations for the playoffs. Now you can celly a little harder.”

Despite Winnipeg’s proximity to Minnesota, only one Wild fan could be spotted, like a green Waldo, in Wednesday’s sea of white. A repugnant sliver of spinach stuck in a Colgate smile, the in-arena camera operator focused on the fan in green and plastered a virtual white shirt on him. At first he tried to squirm but eventually relented.

“We know the crowd. That’s one advantage that I’ve been able to tell the players, playing against them three years ago [with Anaheim], with the crowd and what the expectations are going to be like when you get to the arena,” says Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. This is his first playoff series as the underdog, and he sarcastically played that card.

“We’re glad we’re invited to play, so we’ll give it our best shot.”

As for Maurice, whose knack for dry humour matches Boudreau’s, he was asked post-game what he thought of the opening night crowd.

Maurice paused before coming up with the perfect answer.

“We should invite them all back.” https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/laine-helping-create-new-narrative-winnipeg-jets/ (VIDEO LINK)

LAINE HELPING CREATE A NEW NARRATIVE FOR THE WINNIPEG JETS

Players and coaches explain how Patirk Laine is bringing a different atmosphere to the Winnipeg Jets and how it’s changing how people view the team. https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/hellebuyck-relishing-playoff-intensity-game-2-wild/ (VIDEO LINK)

HELLEBUYCK RELISHING IN PLAYOFF INTENSITY AFTER GAME 2

Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck joins Scott Oake after Game 2 to talk about his performance in the playoffs.

TSN.ca https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/jets-downright-dominant-against-the-wild-in-game-2~1370297 (VIDEO LINK)

Jets downright dominant against the Wild in Game 2

Inexperience has so far been a non-factor for the Jets, as they once again out-paced, out- gunned, and out-classed the Minnesota Wild. The Jets ended up out-shooting the Wild 43 to 17, out-scoring them 4-1 and as the TSN Hockey panel explains, just plain dominating them in every area of the game. https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/poulin-byfuglien-s-physicality-changed-the-game~1370294

Poulin: Byfuglien's physicality changed the game

Dustin Byfuglien made an impact in Game 1 against the Wild and continued his dominant play in Game 2. Darren Dreger and Dave Poulin discuss Byfuglien's impact and also touch on Patrik Laine scoring for the second straight game. https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/button-jets-turned-up-the-pressure-in-the-third-period~1370292

Button: Jets turned up the pressure in the third period

TSN Director of Scouting Craig Button breaks down the Jets' impressive Game 2 win over the Wild, explaining that Winnipeg turned up the pressure in the third period and dominated in all facets. He also discusses Dustin Byfuglien physical impact on the ice. https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/button-wild-need-to-find-a-way-to-get-the-puck-then-keep- it~1370280

Button: Wild need to find a way to get the puck, then keep it

Bruce Boudreau's teams are usually known for producing offence, but through two games in Winnipeg they have only managed three goals. TSN Director of Scouting Craig Button discusses Minnesota's offensive struggles, explaining the Wild need to start by getting the puck away from the Jets.

TSN 1290 (AUDIO LINKS) https://www.tsn.ca/radio/winnipeg-1290/green-injuries-not-yet-a-concern-for-jets-1.1056358

Green: Injuries not yet a concern for Jets

Former NHL player and TSN 1290 Jets analyst Josh Green joined host Kevin Olszewski at morning skate to set up Game 2 between Winnipeg and Minnesota. https://www.tsn.ca/radio/winnipeg-1290/mckenzie-nhl-coach-says-jets-are-five-lines-deep- 1.1056107

McKenzie: NHL coach says Jets are five lines deep

TSN's Bob McKenzie joined the Big Show to break down the opening night of the NHL playoffs including Brad Marchand's licking of Leo Komarov, how the Jets surged late against the Wild in Game 1 and what one Western Conference coach said about Winnipeg's talented forwards in the wake of Mathieu Perreault's injury. www.winnipegjets.com https://www.nhl.com/jets/news/jets-score-four-unanswered-to-beat-wild-in-game-two/c- 297978546

Jets score four unanswered to beat Wild in Game Two Winnipeg leads series 2-0 heading to Minnesota by Mitchell Clinton @MitchellClinton / WinnipegJets.com

WINNIPEG - Five minutes into Game Two, the Minnesota Wild had five shots on goal to the zero next to the Winnipeg Jets logo.

Then, the Jets took over.

Sure, it was scoreless after 20 minutes. But the Jets imposed their will from that point on, outshooting Minnesota 31-8 in the final 40 minutes, and scoring four goals along the way.

When the final buzzer went off, the Jets had earned a well-deserved 4-1 win.

"Our game stayed, I thought, the second period straight through to the third, very consistent," said head coach Paul Maurice.

"I didn't think we came off the hammer last game. I think the entire game (one), both teams forced some things they probably wished they (didn't)…. We didn't have a lot of that in our game tonight."

Tyler Myers scored for the Jets in the second period, and the Jets held that 1-0 lead in the best way possible in the third - by having the puck.

The Wild didn't get a shot on goal from 4:58 remaining in the second until 20:02 later. In addition, the Jets got goals from Paul Stastny, Andrew Copp, and Patrik Laine along the way.

"We feel like if our D are tight-gapped on them, and forwards are coming back hard, it's tough to play against," said Wheeler. "Our defensemen are really mobile and they can be tough to get around when they're in your face like that. We just wanted to keep reloading high above them, and let them be aggressive."

For the second straight game, it would take until the second period for the first goal, but it was worth the wait for the 15,391 inside Bell MTS Place.

Jack Roslovic - making his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut - circled the Wild zone, and when he had no options to the slot, slid a pass to the blue line where Myers was waiting. The Jets defenceman walked around Jason Zucker, past the outstretched stick of Eric Staal, before beating Devan Dubnyk on the stick side, just inside the post.

"After the first shift, I sat on the bench, gathered my thoughts, and I was ready to go," said Roslovic, who played the majority of the game with Bryan Little and Copp.

"Our line was good I thought tonight. We played against a couple of different lines, which was good. We played our game, and didn't worry about the other team."

The Jets kept the pressure up in the third, and were rewarded for it just over eight minutes in.

Laine sent a pass around the left-side boards to Byfuglien, who quickly sent a backhand pass in front to Stastny, who had got inside position at the top of the crease on Joel Eriksson-Ek. The pass was right on Stastny's tape, and before Dubnyk could get across, Stastny buried his first of the playoffs past the Wild goaltender's glove side.

Byfuglien was dominant on this night, finishing with an assist, three shots on goal, three blocks, and eight hits - many of them knocking Wild players off their feet.

"I'll take it when it's there," said Byfuglien. "Just another day at the office."

Maurice offered a bit more on the play of the defenceman, who he feels has been underrated this season.

"In terms of his processing of the game, a lot of really good offensive plays at the right time, really good defensive plays. He's played like that for a big chunk of the season," said Maurice.

"He played very well for us. He didn't score, and that seemed to draw a lot of the concern. But his game was good."

Shortly after that, Roslovic slid a neat pass past Charlie Coyle high in the Minnesota zone. Bryan Little took the pass, and before Matt Dumba could get there, Little played it in front, where Copp deflected it top corner, increasing the Jets lead to 3-0.

"Jack had played well for us. Pascal Vincent earned his (Outstanding AHL Coach) award this year," said Maurice. "He does a marvelous job taking those young players, so when they come to play for us, there isn't a lot in their head about where he's supposed to be on the ice.

"More importantly than all of it, Bryan Little at centre, and Andrew Copp like playing with (him). They have a lot of respect for his game. So I thought those two guys were very good as well."

Laine would extend the lead to 4-0 when he fired a Nikolaj Ehlers pass through Dubnyk from the right circle.

Connor Hellebuyck's shutout bid would be broken with 45 seconds to go, however. Zach Parise deflected a Mikko Koivu slap pass into the bottom left corner, past Hellebuyck's outstretched leg.

But the damage was done.

The Jets now head on the road with a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

"We're expecting a really tough game in Minnesota," said Wheeler. "We're going to regroup tomorrow, enjoy this one tonight, and get back after it." https://www.nhl.com/jets/video/postgame--paul-maurice/t-277437442/c-59874103

POSTGAME | Paul Maurice

Paul Maurice on Tyler Myers' great goal, bringing a one-goal lead into the third period, and winning the first two games of this First Round https://www.nhl.com/jets/video/postgame--patrik-laine/t-277437442/c-59873603

POSTGAME | Patrik Laine

Patrik Laine on the win over the Wild, scoring his second of the playoffs and more https://www.nhl.com/jets/video/postgame--dustin-byfuglien/t-277437442/c-59873503

POSTGAME | Dustin Byfuglien

Dustin Byfuglien on the physical game he brought in Game 2, helping the Jets beat the Wild 4-1 https://www.nhl.com/jets/video/postgame--connor-hellebuyck/t-277437442/c-59873303

POSTGAME | Connor Hellebuyck

Connor Hellebuyck on his 16-save performance to help the Jets take a 2-0 series lead https://www.nhl.com/jets/video/postgame--jack-roslovic/t-277437442/c-59873203

POSTGAME | Jack Roslovic

Jack Roslovic on picking up two assists in his Stanley Cup Playoff debut, helping the Jets defeat the Wild 4-1 https://www.nhl.com/jets/video/postgame--blake-wheeler/t-277437442/c-59873103

POSTGAME | Blake Wheeler

Blake Wheeler discusses the Jets' 4-1 win over the Wild to take a 2-0 series lead