Winnipeg Free Press https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/snowstorm-closes--airport- forces-jets-plane-to-land-in-duluth-479777143.html

Jets forced to return home after real whiteout closes Minneapolis airport

By: Mike McIntyre

It was a white out on the highway near Monticello, this morning. Free Press photographer Trevor Hagan was on his way to Minneapolis to cover the Jets/Wild playoff series.

They've handled the in the first two games off their playoff series, but the Jets have proven to be no match for Mother Nature.

A record-setting spring snowstorm meant the Jets were unable to land in Minneapolis Saturday afternoon and forced the charter flight to be diverted to Duluth, 250 kilometres northeast.

After sitting on the tarmac for a couple hours waiting to see if an opportunity to get into the Twin Cities might open up, a decision was made to turn the plane around and head back to Winnipeg by late afternoon.

All planes were grounded at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport for much of the day as the area was under a blizzard warning, with some estimates of more than 30 centimetres of snow.

The Jets will now fly out of Winnipeg Sunday morning, which is a major change to normal game- day routine. The puck is set to drop for Game 3 at 6 p.m. in St Paul, with the Jets up 2-0 in the best-of-seven series.

Winnipeg held a brief practice and media availability Saturday morning at the Bell MTS Iceplex, moving up the time because of the storm system. They took off from Winnipeg just after noon, which was a couple hours earlier than originally planned with the hope of beating the worst of the weather.

It obviously didn't work.

Several commercial flights out of Winnipeg to Minneapolis were cancelled Saturday, throwing a major hitch in plans for fans and several local media members following the team south.

Minnesota chartered back home immediately following Friday night’s game and held a practice at the Xcel Energy Centre Saturday afternoon. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/jets-fans-ensure-main-street-project- clients-will-have-plenty-of-pizza-for-playoff-parties-479781423.html

Jets fans ensure Main Street Project clients will have plenty of pizza for playoff parties

By: Jane Gerster

A photo of Main Street Project clients enjoying a slice of pizza while cheering on the has prompted an outpouring of social media love, as well as a guarantee that those at the shelter will be kept in pizza so long as the Jets keep winning.

Main Street Project joined Winnipeg Whiteout revelers Friday night, sharing a picture of pizza boxes stacked high and people on the floor, eyes turned up to the game, pizza in hand.

"Our folks in shelter are having a pizza party and cheering on the NHL Jets tonight!" Reads the tweet, which garnered plenty of likes, as did the same photos shared on Facebook.

"Aw – that is awesome," wrote one person.

"SO AMAZING!" Wrote another.

Other people added heart emojis as well as a thumbs up.

Inspired by the response, a board member started an online fundraiser to see about keeping the spirit up. Within hours, it had surpassed the initial $1,000 . The goal has since been upped to $3,000.

"The comments are just so supportive and a lot of people are saying things like, ‘everybody deserves to celebrate,’" said Cindy Titus, communications fund development coordinator with Main Street Project.

"I think that’s a really important : everybody loves the Jets," she said. "Everyone from Tuxedo to downtown and even the most vulnerable in our city want to celebrate how well they’re doing."

Pizza is an obvious way to celebrate, Titus said, "everybody loves pizza, who doesn’t love pizza?"

Main Street Project specifically orders from Santa Lucia because the pizza place already donates 20 pizzas on the first Monday of every month. Titus said they wanted to share their gratitude.

"We’re super grateful," she said.

The Jets, who beat the Minnesota Wild 3-2 and 4-1 during the first two games in Winnipeg, are in Minnesota Sunday for game three.

Main Street Project will be watching — with pizza. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/no-signs-of-stage-fright-for-jets-young- stars-479776273.html

No signs of stage fright for Jets' young stars

By: Mike McIntyre

Forget the kids just being alright. For the Winnipeg Jets, they've been a huge part of jumping out to a 2-0 series lead in their opening-round playoff series against the Minnesota Wild.

Any questions about whether Winnipeg's youngest stars might buckle under the pressure of their first playoff appearances have quickly been answered.

Connor Hellebuyck has won both starts, giving up just three goals in the process. Patrik Laine has scored in both games, chipped in an assist and stepped up his physical play. and Jack Roslovic each have a pair of helpers. Kyle Connor has looked dangerous on Winnipeg's top line. And Josh Morrissey has been highly effective in helping shut down Minnesota's top offensive threats.

A small sample size, for sure. But certainly, there are no signs of stage fright in the early going.

"Continuation of the regular season. They were really important players for us all year. They’ve handled the emotion of it very well. I haven’t seen a difference between the young players and the older players in our game," Jets coach Paul Maurice said Saturday just before his team departed for the Twin Cities in advance of Sunday's Game 3. (6 p.m., , TSN 1290).

"Probably both teams were a little tight in Game 1, early, and you couldn’t tell by the numbers or names on the back, how many games they had in. I think they handled that quite well," he said. "What these guys have done is they hang on to the game that they’ve played. They’re coming to the rink and sometimes the young guys don’t get caught up in the moment. They all feel they’ve got 20 more years of it, so why bother? They’ve looked comfortable."

Morrissey said he knows it's only going to get more difficult, especially facing an ornery Wild team looking to get back in the series while enjoying the comforts of home at the Xcel Energy Centre.

"I think in the playoffs momentum really doesn’t carry over from game to game. So every night it’s a new battle. We’ve played really well in these first two games, I think sort of played exactly how we wanted to and now going into Minny, they have loud fans and it’s a tough rink to play in. We’ve got to be ready to go. It’s a whole new game," he said Saturday.

The 23-year-old, playing his second season with the Jets, admitted he battled some nerves on his first few shifts.

"Once you get out there and get playing the game and get into the feel of the game and make a pass or a hit or something like that, you just feel like you’re playing. You know the time of year you’re playing but you’re still just playing that same game," said Morrissey.

Centre Adam Lowry isn't exactly a veteran at the age of 25. But he's making his second playoff appearance after being on the 2014-15 team that was swept in four straight games by the . Lowry said it's impressive how quickly this crop of playoff rookies have adjusted.

"I think they’re handling it extremely well. First game, first period we seemed a little sluggish. It took a little bit for us to kinda get settled into our game. But after that, I think we’ve really played solid. All those guys have been key contributors," he said.

Roslovic is a perfect example. Relegated to the sidelines as a healthy scratch for Game 1, the rookie jumped right into the mix for his Game 2 debut after Mathieu Perreault was unable to play due to injury. He set up a pair of goals while looking very effective on a line with Bryan Little and Andrew Copp.

"He didn’t look out of place at all. If anything, he was controlling the play and making plays out there. For a guy who’s jumping into his first playoff game and the atmosphere, it’s pretty nice to see. For us guys who’ve been around, we’ll just keep trying to help them out as much we can," said Tyler Myers.

"They’re coming in with confidence and that’s all you can ask from the young guys. They’ve been unreal for us throughout the first two games here."

Maurice didn't have an update Saturday on Perreault's potential availability for Game 3, but it's a safe bet to assume he remains a "game-time decision" as he was for Game 2. Translation: Maurice isn't tipping his hand about injuries during the playoffs, not wanting to give the enemy any information.

"They’re the next best home team in the NHL so they’re going to get into their comfort zone real good. It’s a loud building," Maurice said of what he expects from the Wild.

"What we need to do is handle it. Our game won’t change, the things that we want to accomplish on the ice, but it’s going to feel different on the bench. In that building, the puck crosses the blue-line and the crowd is expecting the chance … It just needs to get near the net and they get pretty excited. It’s all part of the learning process for the new guys and the veteran guys who’ve had that experience before can help out." https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/music/singing-- praises-479653573.html

Singing Winnipeg's praises The Jets are back, and so is vocalist Jennifer Hanson

By: David Sanderson

May 5, 1995: Three days after the Winnipeg Jets’ 1994-1995 strike-shortened season concluded with a 3-1 home loss to the Los Angeles Kings, the club held a farewell party — most called it a wake — at the Winnipeg Arena, during which an emotionally charged Ed Olczyk famously declared, "Wherever this team ends up, when this team wins the ... it’s coming back to Winnipeg"

One of the people in the stands that afternoon was Jennifer Hanson, who, for the last six years of its existence, was the Jets 1.0’s primary anthem singer. Like the other 15,000 people in attendance, Hanson was there to bid adieu to her favourite team. Except when a staffer spotted her in the crowd, he called out asking if she wanted to perform O one last time.

(That day, nobody knew the Jets would end up having to play a final, lame-duck season in Winnipeg, before relocating to Arizona for the beginning of the 1996-97 NHL campaign.)

After responding, "of course," Hanson headed to her usual station in the bowels of the Maroons Road rink, to warm up her voice. Moments later, she was joined by a visibly shaken Barry Shenkarow, the team’s owner, and personality Don Cherry, who had travelled to Winnipeg to lend his support. The three shared a group hug before she headed out onto the ice surface.

"I remember trying hard not to bawl my eyes out but it was definitely tough," says Hanson, who moved back to Winnipeg last June, following a near-20 year absence from the city. "That day, I was the same as everybody else, figuring that was it... that we’d lost our team for good. Nobody could have guessed we’d be sitting here all these years later, talking about the Jets and the in the same sentence."

Two weeks ago, Hanson was in a bookstore, combing through new releases, when a man she guesses was in his mid-50s approached her and asked, "Excuse me, but are you Jennifer Hanson, who used to sing at Jets games in the old days?"

"Even though all this time has passed, it’s still the only way 99 per cent of Winnipeggers know who I am," she says with a laugh, adding that she lives here again. The other question she fields most often is whether fans can expect to see her at Bell MTS Centre any time soon, belting out the American and Canadian anthems.

"My answer is always the same: I did that already, it was joyous but it was a lifetime ago, so no. Plus Stacey (Nattrass) does an absolutely beautiful job. She understands it’s not about the singer, it’s about the song. That’s the way I always approached it, too."

Hanson, the youngest of seven siblings, was born and raised in Flin Flon. After cutting her teeth singing at church, she joined a rock band, Rampage, at the tender age of 16, which presented a bit of a problem to hotel owners hiring her and her cohorts.

"Between sets, they made me sit in the manager’s office because I wasn’t old enough to be in the bar," she says. "Our big moment came when we opened for Chilliwack, when they played the Whitney Forum, the home of the (Flin Flon) Bombers. I thought I did terribly and was backstage crying when somebody told me not to worry, that I was a good singer and should keep at it."

Hanson moved to Winnipeg in January 1987, after turning 18. To pay her rent, she worked as a cashier at Winnipeg Supply. At night, she fronted a group called Grace Face, which featured the talents of Darryl Gutheil, ex of Streetheart, and Dan Roberts, later of the Crash Test Dummies. Her second venture was a band dubbed 417, which was rechristened Jenerator, not long after Hanson signed on. (When a reporter remarks, "Jenerator, as in Jennifer?" Hanson replies yes, but that the name-swap wasn’t her idea. "I grew up in a house where you were not allowed to be vain, so it would never have occurred to me.")

"Jenerator was crazy-busy. We played six nights a week, 48 weeks a year, and commanded between $4,000 and $6,000 per week," she says. "But our overhead was huge. We had a truck, lights, sound equipment, a sound and lighting crew... I was netting in the neighbourhood of 25 grand a year but back then, 25 grand was pretty good money for a 20-year-old."

In 1989, Hanson’s manager informed her the Jets were hosting tryouts for people interested in singing the national anthem prior to home games. She was comfortable with the idea — she and her sisters often sang O Canada before junior hockey games back in Flin Flon — so she arranged for an audition.

OK, forget about asking her what NHL contests have stuck with her the most, or which hockey stars she used to hobnob with at the dearly-departed Rorie Street Marble Club: the real question on everybody’s mind is whose idea was the form-fitting, scarlet-red cocktail dress that quickly became her calling card?

"When I got the job they said here’s some money, go buy some dresses. I assumed I knew what they wanted but I was wrong so yeah, the red dress was definitely their idea," she says, taking a sip of her coffee.

In 1994, Hanson, who by then had added a jazz repertoire to her resumé, was taking in a Jets game in a private suite when in walked "these two big, bulky muscular guys." Hanson learned they were in town doing promotional work for Q94.3 FM. After eavesdropping on a conversation the pair was having with the radio station’s morning team of Beau Fritzsche and Tom Milroy, she tapped one on the shoulder, stating, "I have to tell you... that is the worst Arnold Schwarzenegger accent I have ever heard, my entire life."

To which her target, Henrik Christophersen replied, "Actually I’m from Norway, and that’s how I talk, all the time."

The two hit it off immediately. But because Christophersen was based in Georgia, where he was training to be a commercial pilot, they maintained a long-distance relationship for the next two years, hooking up only when he visited Winnipeg, or when she appeared at nightclubs in the southern United States, with her lounge act. In 1997, Hanson learned she was pregnant. Upon hearing the news, Christophersen said, "Well, in that case, I think we should get married."

"I think it was about a week later when I called him back and said, yeah, we better (get married) or my parents are going to be pissed," she chuckles, noting their daughter Camilla was born in October 1997.

Hanson continued her touring schedule after relocating to Atlanta. But when the couple welcomed a second child to the fold in 1999, she had a decision to make. Calling herself a "full- on, attachment parent," she readily admits she couldn’t figure out how to balance motherhood with a successful singing career.

"There are lots of people who can do it but I’m not one of them," she goes on, flipping through her phone to show off a picture of her son William, now 18. "So what I ended up doing was hooking up with a couple different bands in the Atlanta area, so I could stay home and raise my kids, but continue singing at night, whenever the opportunity presented itself."

In 2012, Hanson started feeling the itch to return to Canada. Sure, she had been visiting family in Winnipeg and Flin Flon every summer. And yes, she had become a familiar face at the Winnipeg International Jazz Festival. But those stopovers only reinforced how much she missed living in the Great White North. (Hockey nuts will also recall Hanson was in town Oct. 22, 2016 to perform O Canada — "in a red dress more appropriate for somebody my age" — prior to the Heritage Classic alumni game, between the Jets and the .)

"I’m Canadian and I needed to be in Winnipeg," she explains. "Living here had been my dream since the first time I came to Winnipeg at the age of 10, and saw the skyline through the window of the Sheraton Hotel, while I was jumping up and down on the bed. Atlanta never felt like home. To me, Winnipeg is my ideal city."

It turns out her son is a fan, too; not long after moving into their home in St. James, William and his mother were walking along the bank of nearby Sturgeon Creek when they realized they’d wandered onto private property. When Hanson remarked they probably shouldn’t be there and that they "were probably breaking the rules," William took her by the hand and responded, "You know what’s nice about breaking the rules in Canada, Mom? Nobody’s going to shoot us."

Since her return, Hanson has kept busy playing gigs at various spots around Winnipeg, such as the Palm Room at the Fort Garry Hotel and the Pony Corral on Grant Avenue. She’s also been booked for a fair number of corporate shows, as well as more intimate house concerts.

"I’m not doing too, too much, in my opinion, primarily because I’m still trying to figure out what’s best for me at this stage in my life," she says. "When I ask myself what a 49-year-old singer is supposed to perform, I’ve kind of come to the conclusion the answer is all the things she wants to. I still want to sing standards, but I also want to sing rock and blues. I guess what I really want is to sing whatever’s good."

On May 11, Hanson, along with the original lineup of Jenerator, will perform a 30th anniversary show at Cowboys, at the Windsor Park Inn, 1034 Elizabeth Rd. The band, which has been rehearsing for weeks, will offer up a mix of ‘80s nuggets made famous by the likes of Journey, Pat Benatar, Robert Palmer and Joan Jett, in addition to classics such as Sugarloaf’s Green Eyed Lady and the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash.

"It’s going to be a party, for sure. But because of my, ahem, advanced age, and because first set won’t start till 10 p.m. or so, I’m definitely going to have to take a nap that afternoon, if I intend to stick it out for the rest of the night."

Winnipeg Sun http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/whiteout-blasts-jets-flight-to-minny

Whiteout blasts Jets flight to Minny

By Paul Friesen

Saturday, the whiteout was real for the Winnipeg Jets.

The team’s charter flight to Minnesota for Games 3 and 4 of their first-round playoff series was diverted, first to Duluth, then back to Winnipeg, because of a spring storm walloping the state.

A blizzard warning for Minneapolis-St. Paul that closed the airport Saturday afternoon was expected to dump 30-45 centimetres of snow on the area by the end of Sunday.

Most of the snow, buffeted by heavy winds, was falling on Saturday, causing the cancellation of commercial flights from Winnipeg to the Twin Cities.

The Jets, leading the series 2-0, left Winnipeg by charter at noon. By 2:30 p.m., their plane was on the tarmac in Duluth, where it sat, waiting, for the next two hours.

With runways at the Minneapolis airport still overcome by snow and air traffic backed up, the decision was made to go back home.

“The #NHLJets returned to Winnipeg from Duluth this afternoon due to the ongoing conditions in the Twin Cities,” the team’s twitter feed said, just before 6 p.m.. “The plan now is to depart (Sunday) morning for Minneapolis.”

The team is scheduled to face off against the Minnesota Wild in Game 3, Sunday, at 6 p.m., Central Time.

Media covering the game also faced travel adventures, either with rescheduled flights or white- knuckle road trips.

A busload of some two dozen reporters, camera crews and technicians from Sportsnet, the Canadian TV network broadcasting the series, left Winnipeg for the Twin Cities just before noon, arriving around 9:30 p.m.

Whiteout conditions closed several state highways, as even snowplows were pulled off the roads.

The Minnesota State Patrol reported 327 crashes due to the storm, 37 of them involving injuries and two of those serious, from late Friday through Saturday at 4 p.m..

They also reported 442 vehicle spin-outs, including eight jackknifed semi-trailers.

A Major League Baseball game between the host Twins and White Sox was snowed out for the second straight day, Saturday. http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/friesen-jets-need-killer-instinct-now

FRIESEN: Jets need killer instinct, now

By Paul Friesen

The first question we had about these Winnipeg Jets, they’ve answered.

Whatever stage fright they might have in the early days of the Stanley Cup Playoffs wasn’t enough to cause them to forget their lines or choke on their words.

The next test: do they know enough to see an opponent down, and not let it up? To put their foot on the proverbial throat?

I wasn’t in the Wild dressing room after Friday’s 4-1 Winnipeg win in Game 2, so I don’t know the body language or the tone of the players.

But reading their words paints a picture of a team that’s not sure what had just hit it, or how it’s going to hit back.

“We gotta figure out a way to get some offensive zone time — I feel like we’ve been playing on three quarters of the rink for two games now,” said. “You’re not going to win like that.”

Both Games 1 and 2 were close enough going into the third period, the Jets leading 1-0 and 2- 0, respectively.

But in crunch time, it was no contest: in two third periods, the Jets have out-shot the Wild, 36-7.

You’d think being down, 2-0, going into the third period of Game 2 would bring out the best in a desperate team.

“We didn’t have a shot on goal until five minutes left in the third period,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau lamented.

As much offensive firepower as the Jets are known for, it’s their defensive clampdown that’s been most impressive.

“You’re not gonna win many getting 14 shots, 15 shots, 20 shots,” Parise said. “We’re not really giving ourselves much of a chance.” Parise has had two shots in two games.

Eric Staal, Minnesota’s shot leader during the season, with 241, has three.

“We had nothing,” centre said. “We weren’t giving ourselves any way to succeed.”

Jason Zucker, second on the team with 222 shots and 33 goals this season, is scratching his head, too.

Led by an aggressive defence, the Jets are jumping on the Wild at every turn.

“We just weren’t getting through the neutral zone cleanly,” Zucker said. “They were standing up on us and every time we got it in we threw a guy on an island with one forechecker.”

Even Boudreau seems perplexed.

“They were a pretty good defensive team this year and we can tell that they’re playing hard,” Boudreau said. “Not that we’re not playing hard. They are playing well. It’s going to be tough.”

The other thing that’s probably taken the Wild, and most people outside the Winnipeg room, by surprise is the Jets’ physical play.

Led by Dustin Byfuglien, it’s been relentless through two games.

“I thought they were physical the whole game,” Boudreau said, Friday night. “They never let up right until the final whistle. We’ll find a way. We have all year.”

“Yeah, they play aggressively,” Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk added. “They’re definitely running around and hitting guys.”

Minnesota’s frustration boiled over in the dying seconds of Game 2.

Normally, that kind of thing is designed to send a message, that there will be a bigger price to pay in their rink.

“It tells me that enough is enough,” is how Boudreau put it. “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.”

Daniel Winnik accused the Jets of “taking liberties.”

“We stuck up for each other,” added. “We’re going to do our best to make this a series and compete.”

The problem for the Wild is this isn’t the 1970’s Habs vs the Bruins. A more rough-and-tumble series doesn’t favour Minnesota.

Neither does a faster, trading-chances, end-to-end one, if the Wild could even force the Jets into that style.

If the Jets keep their foot on the pedal, defensively and in the neutral zone, they create turnovers and offence — and that’s when their skill takes over.

It’s a challenge for any opposing team.

But let’s not kid ourselves: there are teams that can match it.

That’s why the Jets should get out of the first round as quickly as they can.

A four or five-game set with the Wild would allow time to recharge for Round 2, where we all know the will be a handful.

So the next question for the Jets: do they have a killer instinct? http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/dandy-debut-for-roslovic-in-jets-win

Whiteout Street Party exceeds expectations

By Glen Dawkins

Organizers estimate approximately 9,000 white-clad Winnipeggers attended the Winnipeg Whiteout Street Party for Friday night’s Game 2 between the Winnipeg Jets and the Minnesota Wild, filling Donald Street from Portage Avenue to St. Mary Avenue – including hundreds of young fans at the alcohol-free zone at Millennium Library Park.

The Winnipeg Whiteout Street Party will take place every Jets home game of the 2017-18 NHL playoff season. The next Winnipeg Whiteout Street Party won’t be confirmed until the outcome of Game 3 or 4 is determined in Minneapolis.

“It really exceeded expectations on both nights,” said Matt Schaubroeck with Economic Development Winnipeg, the main organizers of the Whiteout Street Party in conjunction with True North Sports and Entertainment and the Jets.

Schaubroeck said the organizers were expecting 2-3,000 fans for Game 1 and had around 5,500 show up. One addition for Game 2 was the family-friendly alcohol-free zone with its own viewing screen.

“We always wanted this to be a family-friendly event but we found with the first night that the energy was a little too much for people with kids,” he said. “People feel there needed to be a spot where they can bring their kids.”

No significant delays on vehicle or pedestrian traffic were reported, while additional food and beverages vendor services kept lines at a manageable level, organizers said. Traffic flow, including the closures of Graham and Donald during the Street Party, was not disruptive. Organizers will be meeting over the next few days to incorporate feedback and improve further Whiteout Street Parties.

Winnipeg police reported no major incidents from either night.

“There haven’t been any major serious incidents that have made us go, ‘We’re not prepared for that,’ ” said police spokesperson Const. Tammy Skrabek. “It’s impressive.

“The people organizing it have put together a great event. Incorporating the family section last night was huge for us because we had a good idea where the children were so it was easy for our officers to keep an eye on the little ones.”

Police tweeted out Friday a reminder that officers would be checking bags for “unacceptable items such as alcohol, drugs, weapons and Minnesota wild merchandise.”

If Game 5 is required, the next Street Party will be on Friday. The start time for the Street Party will be announced once the NHL confirms the start time of the hockey game. http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/grace-under-pressure-jets-youngsters- passing-all-the-tests-so-far

Grace under pressure: Jets youngsters passing all the tests so far

By Ken Wiebe

MINNEAPOLIS – The sample size remains small, though the youngsters in the Winnipeg Jets lineup are having no issues with the adjustment to the Stanley Cup playoffs so far.

One of the biggest question marks surrounding the Jets going into the opening-round series with the Minnesota Wild was the lack of playoff experience throughout the roster.

The Wild’s significant edge in playoff games (748 to 265 going into the series) has barely been a factor, other than goalie Devan Dubnyk providing high-quality play between the pipes and allowing only seven goals on the 84 shots on goal he’s faced.

On the flip side, the Jets youth is playing a big role in how they’ve jumped out to a commanding 2-0 lead over the Wild as the series shifts to the Xcel Energy Center on Sunday.

Nine players on the Jets roster have already suited up for their first Stanley Cup playoff game.

“Continuation of the regular season. They were really important players for us all year,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said on Saturday morning before his team departed for Minnesota. “They’ve handled the emotion of it very well. I haven’t seen a difference between the young players and the older players in our game. Probably both teams were a little tight in Game 1, early, and you couldn’t tell by the numbers or names on the back, how many games they had in. I think they handled that quite well.

“What these guys have done is they hang on to the game that they’ve played. They’re coming to the rink and sometimes the young guys don’t get caught up in the moment. They all feel they’ve got 20 more years of it, so why bother? They’ve looked comfortable.”

Comfortable would be an understatement and it starts in goal, where Connor Hellebuyck has been rock-steady.

Although Dubnyk has been under siege, Hellebuyck is making the saves he needs to and hasn’t allowed a softie among the three pucks to get behind him so far.

Were it not for a late power-play goal in the final minute of Friday’s 4-1 victory, the Jets goalie would have secured his first career playoff .

“You know what, we got the win and that’s all I care about, especially this time of year,” said Hellebuyck. “The guys played so well in front of me, there’s no fault.”

On the back end, the only Jets player with a Stanley Cup ring, Dustin Byfuglien, has been a dominant force, doling out big hits with regularity while chipping in a pair of assists.

As has become customary, second-year blue-liner Josh Morrissey has been excellent for the Jets as well – showing very few signs of being a playoff newbie.

“Especially for Game 1, I think everybody, but you have some nerves going into it. Once you get out there and get playing the game and get into the feel of the game and make a pass or a hit or something like that, you just feel like you’re playing,” said Morrissey. “You know the time of year you’re playing but you’re still just playing that same game.”

Up front, Jets sniper Patrik Laine has been dangerous and leads his team with two goals and three points, while linemate Nikolaj Ehlers has two assists and is starting to find more open space out on the ice.

Rookie left-winger Kyle Connor has yet to hit the scoresheet, but he’s looking more and more comfortable as the series moved along and created several high-quality scoring chances for himself in Game 2.

Andrew Copp provided a nifty redirection in the third period to make it a 3-0 game on Friday.

And what did Jack Roslovic do when he checked into the lineup when Mathieu Perreault was unable to suit up due to an upper-body injury?

Roslovic quickly chipped in a pair of assists and made sure there was no drop-off in play on Bryan Little’s line.

“They’re coming in with confidence and that’s all you can ask from the young guys. They’ve been unreal for us throughout the first two games here,” said Jets defenceman Tyler Myers. “You look at (Roslovic), he didn’t look out of place at all. If anything, he was controlling the play and making plays out there. For a guy who’s jumping into his first playoff game and the atmosphere, it’s pretty nice to see. For us guys who’ve been around, we’ll just keep trying to help them out as much we can.” http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/bad-blood-boils-over-jets-and-wild- rivalry-coming-of-age

Bad blood boils over: Jets and Wild rivalry coming of age

By Ken Wiebe

MINNEAPOLIS – The clock was winding down and the gloves were off as a pair of fights took place late in Friday’s game between the Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota Wild.

Going to the judges scorecards, Wild forward Daniel Winnik scored a decisive victory over Jets winger Brandon Tanev, then Jets defenceman Ben Chiarot got the better of Wild blue-liner Nick Seeler, who had delivered a cross-check to Joel Armia before Chiarot stepped in.

“You play in the Central Division long enough and you play against guys long enough, you start to develop that rivalry,” said Jets centre Adam Lowry. “I don’t know if there’s bad blood. There’s been some physicality. I think you saw the way the game ended, you don’t like getting beat like they did last game. They’re just trying to bring up the intensity, and so are we. There have been some big hits by both teams. I think it’s been a fairly clean series, though.”

Will there be any lingering bad blood as the series shifts to the Xcel Energy Center for Game 3 on Sunday?

“I think it’s part of the rivalry, part of a long seven-game series. I don’t think it’ll carry over,” said Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey. “Like I said before, each game is a totally new battle but emotions are high and that’s what goes along with it at this time of year.”

Following Friday’s 4-1 win, Jets head coach Paul Maurice didn’t sound the least bit concerned about the fisticuffs.

Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau was happy to see what transpired.

“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,” said Boudreau. “Not even the fighting, the chirping going on back and forth. It’s a rivalry now.” http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/jets-in-drivers-seat-but-expect-wild-to- be-different-team-at-home

Jets in driver’s seat but expect Wild to be different team at home

By Ted Wyman

History suggests the Winnipeg Jets have put themselves in great position to win their first-round NHL playoff series with the Minnesota Wild.

Through all the best-of-sevens played since 1939 in the NHL, teams that go ahead 2-0 win the series 88% of the time.

The Jets took a 2-0 lead with 3-2 and 4-1 wins on home ice and dominated the Wild in terms of possession, shots on goal and physicality.

Still, with the series now shifting to St. Paul for Games 3 and 4 Sunday and Tuesday, the Jets expect a big pushback from the Wild, a team that only lost six games in regulation on home ice during the regular season. Only the Jets, with a 32-7-2 record at home, had a better mark than the Wild.

“They’re the next best home team in the NHL so they’re going to get into their comfort zone real good,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said Saturday before the team departed for the snowy, stormy Twin Cities. “It’s a loud building. We’re just really good at home. So are they.

“What we need to do is handle it. Our game won’t change.”

The Wild will need to pick things up considerably in order to start matching the Jets. Minnesota created very little offence in Games 1 and 2, managing a total of just 37 shots and, despite playing a middle-clogging defensive style, were unable to prevent the Jets from firing 84 shots on goal and putting the puck in the net seven times.

“I think they’re going to come out with a real strong push,” Jets centre Adam Lowry said. “We’re happy with the way we played. Now going back to Minnesota we expect them to come out and be skating. They always seem to be on the puck and create a lot of chances there.”

The Jets continue to explore uncharted territory.

Until Wednesday, the franchise had never won so much as a playoff game. Now they’ve got two playoff wins and will look for their first-ever road victory on the way to their inaugural series win.

Nobody is sitting back and enjoying the 2-0 lead, despite what the historical trends indicate.

“I think you’re a little bit more comfortable than being down 2-0,” Lowry said.

“It was nice to get that first win out of the way. I think, just mentally, to know that now the organization has accomplished that, we’re moving forward here and looking forward to the next challenge.”

Through the first two games, the Wild had very little offensive zone time, with goals and quality scoring chances coming mostly off the rush. The Jets tightened up in that area in Game 2 and though it was only 1-0 into the third period, it was never really that close of a contest.

It sounds like for the Wild to get back in this series, they’ll have to play a lot more like, well, the Jets.

“They’re just going to try and get back to their speed game,” Lowry said. “Usually when we have trouble with Minnesota in their rink they’re moving the puck through the neutral zone, they’re skating, they’re activating their D, they seem to come at you in waves. So we’re going to have to be aware of that.”

The Jets have activated their defence regularly in the series. Joe Morrow scored the winning goal in Game 1 and Tyler Myers opened the scoring in Game 2 on a great individual effort.

Dustin Byfuglien has been a monster physically and has two assists, including one on a pass from behind the Wild net to set up Paul Stastny’s game-winning goal on Friday night.

While has been strong for the Wild, playing 57 minutes in the first two games, Minnesota has not been able to match that offence from the defence so far.

“For us, we’ve played a very fast game,” Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey said. “Our forwards have been extremely hard in not giving them any clean ice to make passes on breakouts and when they’re skating and really in the right position and all over the puck, it makes it easier for our D to stay up and have a good gap as well. They do have some guys there that have a lot of skill and can be dangerous but if you limit their time and space it allows our D to be all over them. That’s the style we want to play.” http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/myers-move-made-jets-teammates- nervous-but-it-paid-off

Myers move made Jets teammates nervous but it paid off

By Ted Wyman

On the Winnipeg Jets bench, there were some nervous moments as defenceman Tyler Myers tried a risky deke on Minnesota Wild forward Jason Zucker at the blue-line Friday night.

Moments later there was nothing but joy after Myers powered his way to the net and beat goalie Devan Dubnyk with a shot to the blocker side for the first goal of Game 2.

“Luckily, it worked out well,” Myers said Saturday.

“You look at the last 10, 15 games, I’ve tried that a lot. Just finally was able to finish one.”

Myers is 6-foot-8 and has one of the longest reaches in the NHL. He also has soft hands and has shown an ability to get around checkers. However, it wasn’t long ago that he tried a similar move as the last man back and gave up an overtime breakaway to Boston star Brad Marchand.

It’s a high-risk, high-reward play.

Myers finished it by scoring on Dubnyk, who is one of his off-season training partners in Kelowna.

Did he have any special ideas on where to go with the shot?

“I was just shooting,” Myers said with a chuckle. “I’ve shot on him a lot this past summer and he’s always a very good goalie. I was lucky to put one by him.”

Global Winnipeg https://globalnews.ca/news/4145186/white-out-diverts-winnipeg-jets-flight-to-minneapolis/

White out delays Winnipeg Jets playoff trip to Sunday

By Amber McGuckin and Connor Stanish Global News

The Winnipeg Jets returned to Winnipeg from Duluth, Minnesota, due to a snow storm hitting the Twin Cities Saturday.

Their new plan is to depart Sunday morning for Minneapolis.

A Jets spokesperson said the team was in Duluth, Minnesota earlier Saturday after their flight got diverted. Duluth is more than a two-hour drive to Minneapolis.

A tweet later in the day on Saturday confirmed the Jets had returned to Winnipeg and plan to make the trip again Sunday morning.

The team is scheduled to play the Minnesota Wild in the third game of the playoff series Sunday at 6 p.m.

The Jets have won the first two games.

Multiple flights to and from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport have been cancelled Saturday afternoon.

According to the National Weather Service, a blizzard warning is in effect over the Twin Cities.

“This is shaping up to be a historic storm. Please stay off the roads if possible, especially in southern Minnesota. Several rounds of very heavy snow will continue through this afternoon into this evening,” reads the report.

Total snow accumulations of eight to 15 inches are expected. The blizzard warning is expected to be in effect until Sunday morning at 7 a.m.

CBC Winnipeg http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-jets-flight-diverted-minneapolis-duluth- 1.4620274

Winnipeg Jets fly back to Winnipeg after blizzard forces diversion of trip to Minneapolis Team says Jets will attempt to fly again Sunday morning

By Elisha Dacey · CBC News

The Winnipeg Jets have flown back to Winnipeg after a blizzard prevented the team's flight from landing in Minneapolis Saturday afternoon.

Scott Brown, a spokesperson for Jets owner True North Sports & Entertainment, had confirmed Saturday afternoon the Jets' plane, en route from Winnipeg to Minneapolis, was diverted to Duluth, Minn., about a 250-kilometre drive away.

But a tweet from the team's public relations Twitter account later in the day Saturday said the Jets had returned to Winnipeg and will attempt to make the trip again Sunday morning.

The Jets are scheduled to play the Minnesota Wild in Game 3 of their first-round NHL playoffs series, which the Jets lead 2-0, on Sunday.

A blizzard is currently sweeping through the northern U.S., leading to numerous road closures and flights in and out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport being cancelled.

Arriving at the Winnipeg airport before his flight Saturday, Winnipeg Jets forward Patrik Laine said he hoped for a landing in Minneapolis.

"I'm not flying the plane. I don't know about the weather," he said. "I'm just going to sit on the plane and hopefully we're going to land in Minneapolis."

A couple of early afternoon and evening flights to Minneapolis from Winnipeg's Richardson International Airport were cancelled due to the weather. Two flights to were also cancelled, due to an ice storm from the same weather system pounding the U.S.

Winnipegger Melanie Lee Lockhart told CBC News she was trying to drive into Minneapolis for a show Saturday and had to turn back.

"We got to 90 miles west of Minneapolis and winds were bad, highway was slippery, blowing snow was starting. When we saw the [National Weather Service] warning we pulled the plug."

The U.S. National Weather Service calls the blizzard "historic," adding up to 10 centimetres of snow an hour could fall in and near the Twin Cities.

"Total snow accumulations of [20-38 centimetres] are expected through Sunday from southwest Minnesota to east central Minnesota and northern Wisconsin," the service said. "Totals will taper off to [10-20 centimetres] across west central Minnesota." http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/jets-minnesota-weather-1.4620527

Rain on a wedding day? Whatever, Alanis. We have a whiteout blizzard Minnesota's 'historic' blizzard isn't just ironic. It's impacting Game 3 of the Jets- Wild series

By Bartley Kives

Twenty years after she first annoyed hair-splitters and grammar nerds with "Ironic," Alanis Morissette conceded there is, in fact, nothing ironic about rain on your wedding day.

Your junior high English teacher can finally stand down, as the Winnipeg Jets have redefined irony in a manner unique to a professional hockey team that takes no shortage of pride in playing in a city that endures one of the most highly variable climates on the planet.

Winnipeg endures floods. Winnipeg endures cold. Winnipeg endures seasonal infestations from yellowjacket wasps, several benign mosquito species, at least one potentially dangerous skeeter, aphids, cankerworms, forest-tent caterpillars and if the gods are really angry, as they were last spring, the silk-spinning beasties known as elm spanworms.

But what Winnipeg is really famous for is winter. Sure, Edmonton is colder on a year-round basis and every other large Canadian city, with the exception of , receives more annual snowfall than the Manitoba capital.

Yet the length of Winnipeg's deep freeze and the persistence of the snow that actually falls here makes us synonymous with winter and the blizzards that envelop the city every several years.

During the first two games of the Winnipeg Jets' opening round playoff series against the Minnesota Wild, the club implored its fans to envelop Bell MTS Place in Winnipeg's famous whiteout, the all-white dress code that evokes a seasonal meteorological disturbance we mercifully did not experience this spring.

It's safe to say Winnipeg Jets fans responded to the call.

But when the club tried to venture south into Minnesota for Game 3 of the series, an actual whiteout — perhaps the heaviest April snowfall in the modern history of the Twin Cities — prevented the team's chartered jet from landing at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

That in itself is remarkable, as MSP is a lot like Richardson International Airport. Airports in Winnipeg and Minneapolis are hardened for the highly variable climate in the centre of this continent and are adept at clearing snow.

Unable to land in the Twin Cities, the Jets headed for Duluth, the Minnesota city at the southwestern edge of Lake Superior.

Duluth is an amiable college town with no fewer than 10 craft breweries and one artisanal distillery, Vikre, that produces no fewer than three types of gin, two varieties of aquavit, one kind of vodka and one whiskey.

Luckily for the Jets and their fans, the team remained on the tarmac inside their plane and went nowhere near downtown Duluth or that distillery.

After two hours of immobility unknown to the Jets since the days when Sergei Bautin played defence, it became clear the storm in Minneapolis-St. Paul would not abate. The Jets headed back to Winnipeg from Duluth and will make another attempt to venture into enemy territory on game day.

Conditions on Interstate 94 deteriorated on the approach to the Twin Cities Saturday. (Bartley Kives/CBC)

The U.S. National Weather Service used the term "historic" to describe a blizzard that deposited 35 centimetres of snow on the Twin Cities by Saturday evening.

That's approaching the blizzard of 1983, which piled enough snow on top of the old Metrodome to cause the inflatable roof on the old Minneapolis barn to collapse.

This weekend's blizzard may wind up being the worst to ever hit the Twin Cities in April, at least since the National Weather Service started keeping modern records in 1891.

The heaviest Minneapolis-St. Paul snowfall of all took place during the Halloween blizzard of 1991, when 72 centimetres of snow fell on the Twin Cities.

To place that storm in context, the April 1997 Red River Valley blizzard, which led to the flood of the century, only dropped about 50 centimetres of snow on Winnipeg.

The April 1983 Minnesota blizzard, which deflated the Metrodome, maxed out at 55 centimetres.

By now, you probably know where this is going: While Winnipeg may be the home of the metaphorical, pro-sports whiteout, Minneapolis-St. Paul beats the Manitoba capital when it comes to actual whiteouts.

Historically, the severity of the worst southern-Minnesota snowstorms has exceeded that of their southern-Manitoba counterparts.

As well, Minneapolis-St. Paul also gets a wee bit more snow than Winnipeg during a normal year, although the edge is not significant. The Twin Cities receive an average of 115 centimetres of snow a year, vs. 114 centimetres, on average, in Winnipeg.

Jets winger Patrik Laine arrived at the Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport on Saturday to fly to Minneapolis-St. Paul. He and his teammates didn't get there. (Wendy Buelow/CBC)

So what does this mean today? In Minneapolis-St. Paul, where 10 more centimetres of snow are expected to fall on Sunday, much of the populace has been warned to stay put.

Minnesota's Department of Transportation lists every major highway in the Twin Cities as covered in snow. Hundreds of motor-vehicle collisions were reported across the region on Saturday alone.

Many churches have cancelled their Sunday morning services, the Minneapolis-Star Tribune reported Saturday evening. The Minnesota Twins will not be playing the Chicago White Sox at a snow-covered Target Field.

Given the receding rate of snowfall, the full reopening of Minneapolis-St. Paul airport is not just possible but probable. One runway was clear on Saturday evening, according to the Star- Tribune.

While the Winnipeg Jets have given up on the idea of a morning, game-day skate, they have optimistically called a 3:15 p.m. press conference Sunday for Xcel Energy Centre. It appears the NHL playoff show will go on.

The ability of many Minnesota Wild fans to attend that game, however, is questionable, given the state of the regional highways. That means the prospect of something less than a capacity crowd on Sunday evening, despite a sellout.

In other words, Minnesota's whiteout may affect the volume of the home crowd's support as well as the visiting team's preparation.

Canadian Press http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets-minnesota-wild-game-3-1.4620190

Jets expect frenzied Wild crowd as series shifts to Minnesota Winnipeg bring 2-0 first-round lead south of the border

By Judy Owen · The Canadian Press ·

The Winnipeg Jets got a boost from their frenzied fans over their two victories at home over Minnesota. Jets forward Paul Stastny is expecting another raucous crowd now that the series is moving south of the border.

Winnipeg opened the best-of-seven first-round series with a 3-2 win Wednesday night and followed that with a 4-1 victory on Friday. Game 3 is set for Sunday at Xcel Energy Center.

"Minnesota, it's almost like a Canadian market there," said Stastny, who had a goal on Friday night. "It's a hockey state for sure. I've played there a bunch of times and that building gets loud. I told the guys here I think home playoff games are fun, but I think road playoff games are way better, especially when you're facing a crowd like that.

"Nothing better than winning on the road, so I think we know it's going to be a tough atmosphere, a hostile environment."

Acquired from the St. Louis Blues before the trade deadline, Stastny is competing in his fifth career playoff series against the Wild. The previous four were when he played for Colorado and St. Louis, including the Blues' first-round victory last season.

Comfort zone at home Head coach Paul Maurice said he expects the Wild will get into their comfort zone at home and his players have to be ready to handle the loud crowd.

Minnesota had a 27-6-8 home record in the regular season, with its six regulation losses the fewest in the league. Winnipeg went 32-7-2 on home ice.

The Jets won the regular-season series 3-1. Their only loss was at Xcel Energy Center, which holds about 20,000 fans.

"In that building, the puck crosses the blue line and the crowd is expecting the chance [to score], it just needs to get near the net and they get pretty excited," Maurice said Saturday before the Jets departed for Minnesota.

"It's all part of the learning process for the new guys, and the veteran guys who've had that experience before can help out."

The area was under a blizzard warning and the Jets' afternoon flight had to be rerouted back to Winnipeg. A Jets spokesman said the team would try flying to Minnesota again Sunday morning.

The Wild returned home after Friday's game and practised Saturday.

"By no means is it, 'Oh we're at home. It's a free couple wins,"' Minnesota forward Zach Parise told reporters after the skate. "[The Jets] are playing really well and we're going to have to play much better."

Game 4 was scheduled for Tuesday.

Winnipeg has outshot Minnesota 84-37 over the first two games of the series. The Jets also cranked up their physical play Friday, outhitting the visitors 38-23.

'They've been unreal for us' Veteran Jets defenceman Tyler Myers, who scored the first goal in Friday's win, said Saturday he wasn't too worried about Winnipeg's young players dealing with the pressure.

This is the first playoff series for 11 players on the Jets' roster. The team's only post-season appearance since relocating to Winnipeg from Atlanta in 2011 was a sweep at the hands of Anaheim in 2015.

"They're coming in with confidence and that's all you can ask from the young guys," Myers said. "They've been unreal for us throughout the first two games here."

Second-year defenceman Josh Morrissey admitted there are nerves, but mostly before the puck drops.

"Once you get out there and get playing the game and get into the feel of the game and make a pass or a hit or something like that, you just feel like you're playing," he said. "You know the time of year you're playing, but you're still just playing that same game."

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the team that wins the first two games at home in a best- of-seven series goes on to win the series 88.7 per cent of the time. But Myers knows how quickly momentum can shift.

"[Minnesota] did very good on home ice as we did, so we're certainly going to have to be ready," Myers said. "We know the series is [far] from over and we're just taking it one game at a time."

Pioneer Press https://www.twincities.com/2018/04/14/wild-need-to-play-their-best-game-heading-into-game-3- against-jets/

Wild need to play their ‘best game’ heading into Game 3 against Jets

By DANE MIZUTANI

Snow sets perfect backdrop for a Jessie Diggins celebration in Stillwater

Wild coach Bruce Boudreau huddled his team together upon the conclusion of a brief 30-minute practice on Saturday afternoon at the Xcel Energy Center.

With the Wild trailing 0-2 in a best-of-seven series against the rival Winnipeg Jets, the 63-year- old coach tried to keep his players positive, quietly reminding them that they were the second- best home team in the entire league during the regular season.

Yes, the Wild lost only six games at home during the regular season, something that gives them a tremendous amount of confidence that they can win a couple of games against the Jets, starting with Game 3 on Sunday night at the Xcel Energy Center.

“Unfortunately, I feel like we always find ourselves down 0-2,” Zach Parise lamented. “It’s beginning to be a bad habit of ours. We want to have a great start (in Game 3). We know the crowd is going to be very good. At the same time, we have to give them something to cheer about. We have to play our best game (on Sunday).”

Still, the Wild know they can’t rest on their laurels simply because they’re at home, especially with the way the Jets have been playing to this point.

“We know it’s not by no means, ‘Oh we’re at home. It’s a free couple wins,’ ” Parise said. “These guys are playing really well and we’re going to have to play much better. Regardless where the game is we’re going to have to play much better (on Sunday) than we have in the first two games. It’s not as if we can just go in and expect an easy game.”

As far as the Wild are concerned, Game 3 is a must win if they want to get back into the best-of- seven series. All it takes is looking at last season’s matchup with the St. Louis Blues to see how falling into an 0-3 hole can spell disaster.

“You never want to get down to 0-3 hole,” Eric Staal said. “We know that. It’s an opportunity for us in our building to respond. We have had moments all season where we’ve needed to respond at certain points in the regular season, so it’s no different (on Sunday). We have to have everybody on board to execute and respond and if we do that, we’ll hopefully get the win and go from there.”

It won’t be an easy task by any means for the Wild, though, considering they were outshot 83- 37 in Games 1 and 2 combined. They worked on steadying their play through the neutral zone on Saturday afternoon with hopes that it will cut down on that gap moving forward.

“We know how big Game 3 is (on Sunday),” Jason Zucker said. “We just have to come out and play like we have all season in this building. If we do that, we’re going to be fine. … If we come in (on Sunday) and we play the way we know we can, we can pull out a win and that changes everything drastically.”

“We still know we’re a good hockey team,” Parise said. “It hasn’t really shown in the last two games. We know that we can play a lot better.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/down-2-0-wild-faces-huge-game-against-winnipeg/479774683/

Down 2-0, Wild faces 'huge' game against Winnipeg The team had just six losses in regulation at Xcel during the regular season.

By KENT YOUNGBLOOD Star Tribune

The setting is familiar, and the home ice at Xcel Energy Center has been good to the Wild all season. But coaches and players know that, in itself, isn't enough.

The Wild is in an 0-2 hole heading into Sunday's Game 3 of its first-round playoff series with the Winnipeg Jets. It is the fourth consecutive playoff series the team has found itself in such a hole going back to 2015. If the Wild doesn't want this series to end the way those did, this is a must win.

"It's huge,'' said center Eric Staal, who was reunited on a line with winger Mikael Granlund at Saturday's practice. "Obviously, you never want to get down to a 3-0 hole. So we know that. It's an opportunity in our building to respond. We've had moments all year where we've needed to respond at certain points in the regular season, so it's no different tomorrow.''

Sunday's game is slightly in jeopardy, as the Jets weren't able to fly into the Twin Cities on Saturday because of the snowstorm. Their charter was diverted to Duluth in the early afternoon, and eventually they returned to Winnipeg. They plan to try again Sunday morning.

The Wild lost in regulation just six times in 41 home game this season. It has lost three straight games only once this season, with consecutive losses to Chicago (at home) and at Boston and Toronto in early November. The team responded with a four-game winning streak. Coach Bruce Boudreau hopes to see that same response starting Sunday.

The Wild and its fans will try to match the energy that was exuded by their Jets counterparts for Games 1 and 2 at Bell MTS Place in Winnipeg.

"The guys care a lot,'' he said. "And they're a resilient group. But, most of all, they're competitive and they care. So, I mean, when things don't go well, they're not happy. And I think we work hard to fix those things.''

Saturday's practice included a lot of work on play through the neutral zone, a problem in Games 1 and 2. For Boudreau, it was also about lifting the spirits of a team that has struggled to mount any offense.

"No matter how you cut it, guys play for seven months,'' Boudreau said. "And if they go down 0- 2, they're a little bit disappointed. But it's not like losing, getting down 0-2 in your own building and then having to go to their building.''

That said, home ice, itself isn't enough.

"We're comfortable playing here,'' Zach Parise said. "We'll do our best to get this third game and go from there. But by no means is it, 'Oh, we're at home. It's a free couple wins.' These guys are really playing well and we're going to have to play much better than we have in the first two games. It's not as if we can go in there and get an easy game. It's going to be very tough for us.''

But the team's success at home this season is a good place to start when looking for a rallying cry.

"Unfortunately I feel like we always find ourselves down 0-2,'' Parise said. "It's beginning to be a bad habit of ours. We want to have a great start [in Game 3]. We know the crowd is going to be very good. At the same time, we have to give them something to cheer about. We have to play our best game tomorrow.'' http://www.startribune.com/wild-needs-to-show-some-fight-but-not-the-chippy-kind/479786953/

Wild needs to show some fight, but not the chippy kind

BY CHIP SCOGGINS

Pushed around and severely outplayed in a miserable Game 2 performance, Wild players resorted to throwing haymakers at the Winnipeg Jets in the final 10 seconds, which, predictably, caused hockey traditionalists to characterize their pugilism as “sending a message.”

Baloney.

Punching an opponent in the head after being so thoroughly dominated doesn’t send a message. That’s called blowing off steam.

Want to send a message? Possess the puck more. Generate some shots. Complete more than two passes in a row before turning it over. Finish a check with the same thunderclap as Big Buff and his cohorts keep delivering.

Here’s a real message the Wild can send in Sunday’s Game 3 trailing 0-2 in its first-round series:

Put forth the most complete effort of the season to show that this won’t just be a leisurely stroll through the park for the Jets.

That would get people’s attention.

“We know we’re a good hockey team,” Zach Parise said. “It hasn’t really shown in the first two games. But we know that we can and we have to play a lot better.”

Finding some way to generate offense is at the top of their to-do list. Mustering one shot in the first 15 minutes of the third period isn’t going to cut it.

Winnipeg’s physical style is having an effect on the Wild’s ability to control the puck and establish time in the offensive zone. Just about every time a Wild player retrieves the puck along the boards, ka-boom, he gets flattened against the glass like a bug on a windshield.

That takes a toll.

Jets bruiser Dustin Byfuglien is like a great white shark lurking. He has delivered a few jarring hits already, including one on in Game 2 that made Wild players look even more tentative. They can feel Big Buff’s presence.

The Jets are outhitting and outshooting the Wild by a wide margin. The Wild held an edge in faceoffs won in Game 2 and still managed to do next to nothing offensively. The Jets are smothering them and not letting up.

That blueprint isn’t going to change. It’s up to the Wild to find a way out of the straitjacket.

“Our play through the neutral zone with the puck hasn’t been good at all,” Parise said.

The first two games would have been more tilted if not for goalie Devan Dubnyk, who is doing everything in his power to stop the floodgates from opening. He’s getting little help.

“For us to win,” Parise said, “we need to spend more time in the offensive zone.”

Being back at Xcel Energy Center should provide a spark. The Wild is usually tough at home. And maybe tweaks to line combinations will create something positive.

The Jets have been superior so far because of their size, speed and physical play. Solving those issues isn’t an easy fix.

“There are things structurally that we have to do way better than just pure desperation,” Parise said.

Unfortunately, the Wild understands very well the desperation needed for Game 3 when trailing 0-2 in a series. This is the fourth consecutive playoff series and seventh in the past eight that the Wild has lost the first two games.

Parise called it a “bad habit,” but it’s also an annoying habit. This narrative has become too familiar. Constantly having to dig out of a hole isn’t conducive for playoff success. The Wild’s margin for error is so small again.

Parise doesn’t believe the nonsense that took place in the final seconds on Friday will have any bearing on Game 3. Nor should it. Animosity typically builds over the course of a series. The Wild has more pressing concerns.

“We need to worry about winning a hockey game and not the chippy part,” Parise said. “We need to worry about scoring more goals. We’ve got three goals in two games. That’s not good enough. All that other stuff … we need to pay attention to the hockey game.”

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

Big, physical hockey as important as ever in Stanley Cup Playoffs

By Mark Spector

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — “Big and good beats small and good,” the old hockey scout said. “Every time.”

We all have these maxims in the back of our heads, whatever our vocation. The bricks and mortar of a career collected over the years, one piece of advice at a time.

Measure twice, cut once. If you’re not five minutes early you’re five minutes late. Or this old gem from one of our favourites, former Winnipeg Jets coach Tommy McVie:

“There are two places you never make a drop pass,” McVie will tell you. “At home, and on the road.”

Of course, some of these are time sensitive. Today, we like drop passes more than Toe Blake did back in the Original Six.

Others, as the big, good Winnipeg Jets pound their way through this first round series against Minnesota, appear to withstand the test of time.

Does big and good still beat small and good? Even in today’s ?

“I’ve always had big teams and we’ve always made the playoffs,” said Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau. “I think it’s a good thing to have a big team.”

The game has reached an awkward place, and we’re seeing it played out in Round 1 across the NHL, where hits totals after each game come in at double the number we see in the regular season. Regular season hockey is becoming less physical by the season, as the “blow-up hit” becomes a thing of the past for a myriad of reasons: the increasing speed of the game; concussions; today’s salaries, and the role of the Player Safety Department.

Yet when the games really count in April, May and June, the physical ante gets raised. At this time of year, it’s good to be big again.

“Well, fast is still primary,” began Jets head coach Paul Maurice. “We’d all prefer six-foot-five and could skate like Nik Ehlers, but you can be five-foot-11, 170 pounds (now), and if you can skate . So, it’s speed first, (but) if you can get a big man that can move, there’s only one or two more pieces left before he’s an All Star.”

A year ago the Edmonton Oilers beefed up with players like Pat Maroon, Milan Lucic and Zack Kassian, and went two rounds deep. This season things went wrong, and the Oilers are deemed two big and slow. They didn’t make it through the regular season to the playoffs, where they could use that size.

Winnipeg, meanwhile is every bit as big or bigger than Edmonton was, and they are a terror with their mix of speed and size. Big, strong players like 260-pound Dustin Byfuglien and 6-foot-5 , a giant of a man who spins on a dime coming out of the corner like a guy half his size.

Puck protection is in vogue, and there isn’t a theory alive that would understate size and strength in that game. And watching the Jets dominate a team like Minnesota — which is by no means small — it’s a combination of size and speed that the Wild just can not handle thus far.

“Whether you’re small or big, you have to be on the puck. Force their team to make plays they don’t wan’t to make,” said young Jets centreman Adam Lowry, an absolute stud at six-foot-5, 210 pounds, who has checked Eric Staal into oblivion through two games. “It certainly helps to have a captain (Wheeler) who is 6-5 and can really fly, and your No. 1 centreman () is 6-3. Guys with size, but who can play.”

The question becomes, as the changing game open its doors to smaller, faster players like Jared Spurgeon or the lightning fast Ehlers, will players the size of Staal, Wheeler, Byfuglien and Charlie Coyle be able to skate fast enough to keep pace?

It’s great to be built for the playoffs. But not if you don’t get there.

“There’s a lot more board work in the playoffs,” said Boudreau. “It’s not rush against rush, so a big man and a strong man has to be good along the boards.”

We’ll give the last word to Maurice, whose team has poured 40 shots per game at Minnesota, while the Wild have just 37 shots on goal in the series.

In 2018, is my old scout still correct? Does big and good beat small and good?

“I don’t think you have a whole team of one,” Maurice surmised. “We don’t talk about hitting in our room. We don’t talk about playing a physical game. We have men that finish their checks.

“They’re big and that’s part of who they are.” https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/nightmare-dustin-byfuglien-will-change-way-think/

Nightmare Dustin Byfuglien will ‘change the way you think’

By Luke Fox

ST. PAUL, MN – The close-up of Dustin Byfuglien’s face splashes on the Winnipeg Jumbotron, and the home crowd erupts into a second round of raucous cheers. Most stand up.

Byfuglien, sweaty and serious, glances up to see his own face a billion pixels large, hears the 112 decibels of love and doesn’t so much as smirk.

The first roar occurred just moments prior, when he detonated Minnesota Wild captain Mikko Koivu with a shoulder as legal as it is lethal.

“It makes me smile, I guess,” Byfuglien forces. Except he’s not smiling when he talks about the hit, and he wasn’t smiling during either. “I just enjoy playing the game. It doesn’t really do much for me.”

Maybe. But it does the world for his teammates, his fans, his coach, and – most critically – the helpless little green men in his crosshairs.

Byfuglien’s unflinching expression — business in the front, target on your back — is the cold face of this series. He hasn’t scored, but on Friday the 13th his game-high eight hits, game-high three blocked shots and slick setup of Paul Stastny’s game-winner were enough to earn him First Star of the Game honours. Name another player who can take 12 minutes in penalties and still be the best guy on the ice.

“He’s a nightmare to play against,” says Jets captain Blake Wheeler. “He can be as dominant a player in the game as there is. He can control games with his size [6-foot-5, 260 pounds], and he feels the game incredibly well, too. He’s a really unique guy.

“Going into the corners with him, he’s so solid, he’s tough to get a piece of, and when he decides to lay into somebody, it’s not a whole lotta fun. He’s a guy who can really turn the tides out there just with his sheer presence.”

Jets coach Paul Maurice tells a story from when he served as an assistant for Team Europe at the 2016 World Cup. His club was set to open the tournament against Team USA when American coach (rather controversially) opted to make Byfuglien a healthy scratch. Seven different European skaters blurted, “Thank God.” Guys like Tomas Tatar, they all began recounting the time they’d been Buff’d.

“And they were so pleased he wasn’t in the lineup,” Maurice says.

“Very clean hits. I think you need to know, he pulls off on just about every single hit. Because 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 there, it was so violent. He’s such a big, powerful guy. He pulls on almost every one of his hits. But it is — it’s not a pun — impactful on the game. He can change the way you think.”

Just as Koivu, a 13-year vet, walked blindly on the freight train’s tracks (“You have to pay the price. You have to be ready,” Koivu lamented), so too did Joel Eriksson Ek in Game 1.

“I couldn’t really see him coming. It was probably the biggest problem for me,” says Eriksson Ek, who temporarily went to the dressing room, but did not undergo concussion protocol.

We may discover one day that Dustin Byfuglien’s shoulder is responsible for more unreported concussions than Jofa.

Thing is, no one in Minnesota is questioning the validity of Byfuglien’s violence. “If I get a chance like that I’ll probably finish too,” says Wild defenceman Mathew Dumba.

Wild coach Bruce Boudreau has been watching Buff since Norfolk, before the big huntin’ and fishin’ eighth-rounder from Minnesota had made the league — and he still can’t solve the guy.

“He’s all over the place,” Boudreau says. “You have to just be aware of where he is, quite frankly. He can be behind the net. He can stay out for two minutes. He’s so physically imposing that we have to know where he is.”

When you don’t know where he is, things like the explosion of happen. “Ottawa. Stone. That was the biggest hit I’ve ever seen live in a hockey game. Unbelievable.”

He’s a rover, a wild card with a clapper that makes you duck or wince or cry. He’s kinda like Brent Burns minus the public joy, but not quite. Wheeler insists there’s no comparison on earth.

Byfuglien has a green light to wander. So when he makes a seemingly bad pinch, like the one that led to Zach Parise’s two-on-one goal in Game 1, Maurice notes that “there’s a forward element to that too.”

Read: The other Jets have to adjust to Byfuglien, because he ain’t changing a thing.

Byfuglien’s current partner, Game 1 hero Joe Morrow, says the best thing that could’ve happened to him once getting dealt to Winnipeg at the deadline was finding his locker beside Buff’s. He learned Byfuglien the man, how he thinks and operates, how he’ll roll down low and try to create offence.

“Unorthodox,” says Morrow. “If I have to stray from my game a little bit to make us both successful, that’s what you have to do.”

The last time Byfuglien was part of a team that actually won a playoff game, his won 16 of them. The 2010 Cup champions promptly traded him due to cap constraints. That was eight years and a thousand gifs ago.

“It doesn’t come around very often. So enjoy it,” Byfuglien says. “While you’re here you might as well give it all you’ve got. You never know what could happen.”

A reluctant quote, Buff’s impact on Jets culture — soggy tracksuit, anyone? — speaks volumes. During warm-ups Friday, rookie Jack Roslovic was nervously taking laps when Buff, 33, playfully checked his 21-year-old teammate into the glass. Both laughed. Jitters gone, Roslovic set up two goals.

But it’s the Eriksson Ek and Koivu hits that reverberated throughout the bench, filling our notebook the way Buff fills the Wild’s ice baths.

Bryan Little: “He’s had a couple hits that have almost seemed to single-handedly change the game. It seems every time he steps up on a guy, it’s like the guy is running into a wall…. It’s that intimidation factor…. When he’s got your back in scrums or whatever, you know he’s probably got two guys in a headlock.”

Patrik Laine: “He’s just throwing his body all around the ice and it just gives us so much energy.”

Nikolaj Ehlers: “It gets everybody in the room fired up. One hundred per cent. A big hit like that gets the fans going, gets us going. It gets me going.”

Paul Maurice: “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.”

Dustin Byfuglien: “Just another day at the office.”

Bam.

ESPN.com http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/23134510/nhl-winnipeg-jets-winger-patrik-laine-already-big- star-two-continents-now-ready-conquer-us

The hirsute of excellence: Jets winger Patrik Laine is the NHL's latest, and hairiest, teen sensation

By Emily Kaplan

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- In late March, when Patrik Laine limped off the ice against the Los Angeles Kings after blocking a shot, the status of the Winnipeg Jets winger's left leg quickly became a minor international incident. In Laine's native Finland, newspapers published dueling doctors' prognoses. Fans tweeted at the Winnipeg Police Department, wondering if authorities might press charges against the culprit who fired the puck, Kings defenseman Alec Martinez. The verdict: No, but Laine "deserves an Atta Boy for his dedication to duty (and defence)."

As I passed through customs in Winnipeg the next day, a border agent interrogated me about the purpose of my visit. I revealed that I was in Canada for business, as a journalist -- and, finally, after some additional prodding, that I was a sportswriter covering hockey. "Ah, I bet you're here for Laine, huh?" she said. "I hope [his injury] is not too serious."

When I interviewed Laine [pronounced LIGH-NAY] later that afternoon, I explained that the world was very concerned about him. The 19-year-old, who had just finished a 30-minute workout on an exercise bike, didn't flinch.

"OK," he said. "You can tell everyone I'm going to live. Probably."

Such deadpan has become a signature for Laine, who has captivated the league -- both because of his scoring prowess and his personality. Since being drafted No. 2 overall in 2016, Laine has scored 79 goals -- the third-most by a teenager in NHL history, trailing only Dale Hawerchuk and Jimmy Carson (and, yes, even more than ). With his 6-foot-5, 200-plus-pound frame, wicked shot and dexterity around the left faceoff circle, Laine profiles as the next Alex Ovechkin. And while the league recently celebrated the 32-year-old winger for becoming the fourth-fastest player in NHL history to reach 600 goals, it's worth noting that Laine could reach the feat at an even younger age than Ovechkin, who made his NHL debut in 2005 at age 20. Laine won't turn 20 until April 19.

Laine is uncommonly comfortable in his own skin -- and facial hair -- for a 19-year old. "I think it shows what kind of person Patrik is," says teammate Brandon Tanev. "To stick with [the beard] even if it doesn't look great." Darcy Finley/NHLI/Getty Images Laine applied heat on Ovechkin for the Rocket Richard Trophy, awarded annually to the league's leading goal scorer, for most of March. And while Laine did not, in fact, miss any time after the blocked-shot scare, a seven-game goal drought following the injury hampered his campaign. Ovechkin finished the regular season with a league-best 49 goals. Laine was second, with 44.

"Maybe he's not on the same level yet, just because Ovi has done it for years and years," says St. Louis Blues winger Chris Thorburn, a 10-year NHL veteran who played alongside Laine with the Jets last season. "But Patty is in that conversation -- just because of his shot alone. You don't see too many guys with that kind of talent, the kind those two guys have. And we're still just finding out how special Patty is."

For the first time in nearly two decades, the Jets are legitimate Stanley Cup contenders. And Laine personifies the young, plucky players who have gotten them this far. But he has also become a cultural phenomenon on two continents. He rarely leaves his house in Winnipeg unless he has to. Back in his hometown of Tampere, Finland, Laine is a mainstream celebrity.

"He's all over the news," goalie and fellow Tampere resident Tuukka Rask told ESPN last fall. "In the newspapers a lot. Every time you open the internet, there's something about him. People click it."

When the NHL announced that a Global Series game between the Jets and would be held in Finland next October, tickets sold out in less than 20 minutes.

This all might be too much for most teenagers to handle. Laine, however, is so comfortable in his own skin and routine that nothing seems to faze him. When he's not at the rink, he's usually at home playing video games -- Fortnite has quickly replaced Call of Duty as his go-to game -- even though his usual sparring partner, Florida Panthers center and fellow Finn Aleksander Barkov, wasn't available as often as he liked during the season's stretch run.

While the Panthers were battling for a playoff sport, Barkov was "not online anymore," Laine says. "He's too busy to play with me."

When Laine and the Jets played Ovechkin and the Capitals on March 11, the Jets winger had pulled even -- temporarily -- with his childhood idol in the scoring race. Each player entered the game with 40 goals. Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images On the team plane, Laine plays the same card game (Snarples) with the same five teammates, even though he hasn't been lucky at it all season.

"I've lost a few dollars," he says. "But I love it so much." On the road, he orders the same room- service meal every night: steak (medium), french fries and a Sprite. He doesn't have the itch to sight-see, or even to try new restaurants.

"If we're in L.A. and it's nice weather, we won't sit in our rooms all day," says his regular road roommate, Nikolaj Ehlers. "Or in New York, we'll go shopping. But yeah, I sometimes have to drag him with me. Otherwise we really do the same thing every day."

Laine has also, for the last two months, maintained a gnarly beard -- the result of a bet with a cousin back in Finland. Though the blond unruly hairs are inspiration for a line of synthetic beards that sell for $9.99 at a Winnipeg party store, the look has been the butt of jokes in the Jets dressing room.

"I tell him every day he needs to shave it," says Jets center Andrew Copp, who lockers next to Laine. "We called him Sasquatch for a little bit. I called him Abe Lincoln the other day. Trust me, he gets it pretty good."

"I think it shows what kind of person Patrik is," winger Brandon Tanev says. "To stick with it even if it doesn't look great."

That's the thing about Laine: He has never really conformed like his peers.

In late March, he was clipped by a high stick at the hands of Nashville Predators captain Roman Josi, which left Laine bloodied. Laine exited the ice and met with team doctors. Stitches were likely required, they told him. Laine had one plea: "Please, don't ruin the beard."

Laine has no idea how the gash was cleaned up, but when he returned to the bench the beard was intact -- just crusted with some dried blood. "I had faith in the doctors," Laine says. "They are professionals, after all."

The 2016 draft was all about Auston Matthews, an Arizona-born center considered a generational talent. The held the first pick. When in doubt, teams always take the top center. But Laine was already flexing his talent in the Finnish , and knew he would thrive in the NHL. So he said it.

In several interviews, Laine declared that he should go No. 1. This sent the NHL into a tizzy. In the NFL draft last year alone, defensive end Myles Garrett said he would "punish the Browns" if they didn't pick him No. 1; quarterback Deshaun Watson said it would be "a slap in the face" if fellow quarterback Mitchell Trubisky was selected ahead of him. Arizona power forward Deandre Ayton already labeled himself as the top NBA prospect this season.

But hockey has different cultural norms. Players are deferential to a fault. In interviews, most NHL players even avoid using the pronoun "I."

"There's a lot of differences in other sports of what you can say," Laine explains. "It doesn't matter who you are talking to, hockey players don't want to talk about themselves, they want to talk about someone else who is better than they are."

So Laine understood why his words spurred a flurry of think pieces that either marveled at or condemned his confidence. But he was simply being himself.

"Maybe some people thought I was arrogant when I was saying it, but honestly I didn't think it was," he said. "There are a lot of people who don't like me. But I just say what I believe. I have a policy where I don't lie. I don't lie to the media. I don't see the point. You guys ask me something and I just say what I know."

Laine in uncannily honest. It's a remarkable personality tic that's refreshing, but also perplexing for the uninitiated. Ask him anything and he'll answer reflexively. When he reveals he wants to work on his golf game this summer -- "I don't want to suck forever," he says -- I ask who the best golfer on the Jets is.

"I don't know if I want to answer this," he says. Then he pauses and blurts out the answer because he can't help himself. "OK, maybe the best three are [Connor] Hellebuyck, [Kyle] Connor and [Mathieu] Perreault. But I haven't seen everybody golf."

When asked what it's like being mobbed for autographs, Laine says, "I've never said no to anybody, because it's an easy thing I can do. But I don't like when people ask me to sign parts of their body. No skin. I'll do it, but think that's weird."

Regarding his opinion of Winnipeg, which has a reputation among other hockey players as being cold, dreary and a tad provincial, Laine says: "Pretty much the only thing I knew about it before I came was that it was cold and that hockey is the main thing here. And that's true. I come from a small town compared to this one. I don't need much. I need a good place to stay at. I need a good locker room and a good atmosphere at the rink. That's pretty much all I need. So for me, Winnipeg is perfect."

Laine grew up in Tampere, which is situated on a narrow strip between two big lakes in southern Finland. It's the second-largest city in the country. His father, Harri, and mother, Tuija, both worked blue-collar jobs. His sister played basketball until a serious injury forced her to stop.

"It was a nice place to grow up," Laine says. "There were a lot of areas where you could swim and stuff like that. I always played sports."

Growing up, Laine played soccer and tennis -- and just about every other sport, though not competitively. Hockey was his favorite. He began as a goalie.

"I liked that way more than being on ice as a normal player," he says. "I thought it was more fun catching the pucks. Now I'm kind of too scared of pucks. Like the blocked shot [against the Kings]. You gotta do what you gotta do if the other guy wants to score, but it hurts to get in front of the puck like that."

Laine was always competitive.

"I've always been good at sports. It really didn't matter which sport, I've always been pretty much above average, and I've always taken it seriously," he says. "It didn't matter if I was playing cards or something. If I lost, I was just going to throw the cards away. I think a lot of people didn't like me because of my attitude. I was pretty much the same as I am now."

He didn't like school very much, though that came easily, too.

"I didn't have to work that hard to be good," he says. "I've always been good at speaking other languages. We'd practice speaking Swedish and English. Math was always my strength. I'm good with numbers, and counting in my head."

He's still good with numbers. Laine says that he rarely checks the NHL stat leaders -- because he doesn't need to. He knows what Ovechkin and fellow Rocket Trophy candidate Evgeni Malkin scored the night before and simply calculates the new totals in his head.

Growing up, Laine would practice his accuracy by shooting at Coca Cola cans in the backyard. He was always an NHL fan, though it was tough to follow when only a couple sports channels would play a random game here and there, usually in the middle of the night. Instead, Laine studied hours of YouTube videos of right-handed shooters -- usually Ovechkin or Steven Stamkos. He noticed how quickly Ovechkin got his shot off and knew that needed to be a hallmark of his own game. Laine played with his idol a few times at international competitions but officially met him for the first time at last year's NHL All-Star Game.

"He told me to keep it up and that I was doing a good job," Laine says. "That's all I really needed to hear."

Though Laine dazzled as a rookie, he made his biggest strides in Year 2. The season began slowly for Laine, who had just four goals in his first 11 games, which prompted him to tell the media, "It feels like hockey is really hard right now."

"It just felt like nothing was going right," Laine reflects now. "Pucks are bouncing and it feels like you are playing with a tennis ball. If you pass to somebody, they can't score."

His Jets coaches weren't deterred. Even as he struggled to score, they noticed improvements in Laine's game.

"We really judge Patty's game now by all the things he does without the puck," Jets coach Paul Maurice says. "He's got lots of room to be creative, and he is. We talk about his shot, but he's an excellent passer and he's quite creative with what he does with the puck. His play without the puck is night and day [compared to] where it was when he started."

And then Laine started getting his bounces. In March, he strung together a 15-game point streak, the longest-ever by an NHL teenager, including 18 goals and eight assists. It ended during the Kings game in which he was injured. He was forced to leave in the first period.

Laine has maintained his low profile even as everything intensifies around him. The reason he plays video games directly after practice is because it's one way to stay in touch with buddies back home. His best friend works at a grocery store in Finland. Other pals are studying at university.

"My life is different than theirs," he says. "But I try to remember who I am."

Laine still lives with his parents (ether his mother or father has shared his apartment the past two seasons). "It's necessary," he says. "I can't do some things on my own. I can't cook at all. I've tried, and I'm telling you, I'm very bad. Can't even make pasta. I'm too lazy to figure it out."

Laine has adapted to North American culture. He says he has become an NBA fan, specifically of the Houston Rockets. His favorite player is James Harden. "No, not because of the beard," he says. "I just like the way he plays."

All season, he has had visitors in Winnipeg -- friends, relatives, family friends. Usually Laine will go through the same routine. One day he will suck it up and take them to a Winnipeg mall to show them around.

"I obviously get noticed and sign like 150 autographs," Laine says. Then the rest of the trip they lounge at the apartment. During the playoffs, Laine's parents, girlfriend, sister and sister's boyfriend will all be on hand -- and they'll all stay at his apartment.

Laine may need help with daily domestic tasks, but when it comes to conducting extensive interviews entirely in his second language, he's a seasoned pro. He not only has an impressive command of English, he is even adept at incorporating humor into the conversation.

"Actually, that's one thing I had to work at," he says. "It's hard to express your feelings in a different language. It's hard to be funny in English because you have to think about what you're going to say all the time. You think about it a lot, especially coming into the league. I just want to make sure people can understand my humor. I get nervous it won't translate."

He pauses, then grins: "So you know, if I was talking in Finnish right now, I'd have way funnier stuff."

NHL.com https://www.nhl.com/news/dustin-byfuglien-looks-to-carry-veteran-presence-with-young-jets/c- 297851060

Byfuglien keeping things light with Jets Defenseman has been needed presence on, off ice by Tracey Myers @TraMyers_NHL / NHL.com Staff Writer

Winnipeg Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien brings a balance that works. On the ice, he's physical and intense, a strong skater with a booming shot. Off the ice he's laid back, cracking jokes, pulling pranks and keeping the mood light.

"An old-school presence with an easy-going attitude," Jets forward Paul Stastny said.

The Jets (52-20-10, 114 points) are going to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second time since relocating from Atlanta to Winnipeg in 2011. As they prepare for the intense hockey that comes with the postseason, the Jets have appreciated Byfuglien's demeanor as much as his defense.

"He wants to win, but he keeps it light," Stastny said. "Sometimes we take things too seriously, sometimes we don't realize how fun it is and how lucky we are to be in this position. When you're having fun, that's when you're playing better."

Byfuglien (six goals, 35 assists) has played a major role in the Jets' outstanding season, so much so that coach Paul Maurice believes Byfuglien is playing the best hockey of his career as a defenseman.

"The last two years, we've chased a lot of hockey games. He's a very competitive man so when you're down one (goal) or two, he's going to do everything he can to change that. It's not a great recipe for a foundational game for a defenseman," Maurice said. "His game has evolved in lockstep with our team: try to play the right game and if we're down a goal, it's not the end of the world. We have confidence in our ability to come back because we can score goals. We're more patient, and he's a leader in that department."

Byfuglien has evolved, from playing forward when the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010 to the steady defenseman he has become with the Jets. His mischievous nature and relaxed attitude have always been there.

"He's a great guy, always has fun and good for everybody in that regard off the ice," Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith said. "It can be a long season at different times during the year, and other times when the team isn't doing so well, he can keep it light. That's a big part of it too. You need guys like that on a team to have a successful team."

The Blackhawks were the subject of his pranks even when after Byfuglien left Chicago following the 2009-10 season. Prior to a practice in Florida several years ago, Blackhawks right wings Patrick Kane and Marian Hossa found their gear in tatters - "our stuff was cut up; big holes in it," Kane said. The Jets had practiced before the Blackhawks that day, so Kane knew who to blame for the shredded gear.

"You knew it was him," Kane said with a laugh. "It couldn't have been anyone else. It was Buff."

Byfuglien learned a lot in his time with the Blackhawks, especially during that 2010 Cup run. Part of a young team trying to end decades of hockey frustration in Chicago, Byfuglien went from defenseman to forward, scoring 16 points (11 goals, five assists).

"I think we just all kind of came in together," Byfuglien said. "It was just the bonding that we had. Just things that go on in the room, you become a family. You never lose it, really."

He sees the Jets coming together the same way.

"We've gone through it and we're going in the right direction," he said. "We still have work to do, but we're doing the right things here."

Byfuglien's game keeps improving. What's always been strong is his sense of humor, his ability to keep things light. The Blackhawks benefitted from that in 2010, and the Jets could do the same now.

"Care-free, having fun every day, win or lose, just trying to get better and enjoying being in the League," Blackhawks forward said. "You could say that for a lot of those guys on those teams back then, but Buff stands out the most." https://www.nhl.com/news/minnesota-wild-in-familiar-spot-heading-into-game-3/c-297988862

Wild in familiar spot heading into Game 3 vs. Jets Minnesota down 2-0 in first-round series for fifth time in six seasons by Jessi Pierce / NHL.com Correspondent

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Minnesota Wild find themselves in familiar territory, down 2-0 in the best-of-7 series to the Winnipeg Jets in the Western Conference First Round.

The Wild, who have made six straight Stanley Cup Playoff appearances, have been down 2-0 in the first round all but once (2015 against the St. Louis Blues). They are 1-15 in Games 1 and 2 during the first and second rounds of the playoffs since 2013.

Game 3 is at Xcel Energy Center on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; USA, SN, TVAS, FS-N+).

"Unfortunately I feel like we always find ourselves down 0-2," Minnesota forward Zach Parise said. "It's beginning to be a bad habit of ours. We want to have a great start (in Game 3). We know the crowd is going to be very good. At the same time we have to give them something to cheer about."

Minnesota, which did not lose more than three games in a row during the regular season (Nov. 4-8), has responded with a win in Game 3 three out of four times (3-0 loss to the Blues last season).

"You never want to get down to 3-0 hole, we know that," Wild forward Eric Staal said. "It's an opportunity for us in our building to respond (on Sunday). We've had moments all year where we've needed to respond at certain points in the regular season, so it's no different tomorrow. We have to have everybody on board to execute and respond and if we do that, we'll hopefully get the win and go from there."

The Wild opened the first round of the playoffs on the road from 2013-16, with Game 3 victories in 2013, 2014 and 2016 at home.

Minnesota went 27-6-8 at home during the regular season, tied for second in the League in points (62) and tied for fourth in wins.

"I'd like to see us get off to a good start, go after that first goal and play the game from there," Staal said. "It's about using energy in our building tomorrow to really come out and go after them. We've got to play the biggest game of the year." https://www.nhl.com/news/winnipeg-jets-ready-for-minnesota-wild-and-hostile-game-3-crowd/c- 297990542

Jets ready to face Wild, hostile crowd in Game 3 Winnipeg must handle noisy arena, revved-up opponent on road after two wins at home by Tim Campbell @TimNHL / NHL.com Staff Writer

WINNIPEG -- The Winnipeg Jets are preparing to go from friendly to hostile surroundings for Game 3 of the Western Conference First Round against the Minnesota Wild.

The Jets lead the best-of-7 series after two wins at Bell MTS Place -- the first two Stanley Cup Playoff wins in Winnipeg/ history -- with Game 3 at Xcel Energy Center on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; USA, SN, TVAS, FS-N+).

"We know it's a good crowd for them," said Jets defenseman Tyler Myers, who scored in a 4-1 win in Game 2 on Friday. "They did very good on home ice as we did, so we're certainly going to have to be ready. We know the series is long from over and we're just taking it one game at a time."

The Wild were 27-6-8 at Xcel Energy Center during the regular season; Minnesota had the fewest home losses in regulation and the second-most home points (62, tied with the ). Winnipeg led the NHL with 66 home points.

"They're the next-best home team in the NHL so they're going to get into their comfort zone real good," Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice said. "It's a loud building. What we need to do is handle it.

"Our game won't change, the things that we want to accomplish on the ice, but it's going to feel different on the bench. In that building, the puck crosses the blue line and the crowd is expecting the chance … it just needs to get near the net and they get pretty excited. It's all part of the learning process for the new guys, and the veteran guys who've had that experience before can help out."

Winnipeg outshot Minnesota 84-37 in the first two games, but Jets center Adam Lowry said he is expecting more offense from the Wild in Game 3.

"I think they're going to come out with a real strong push," Lowry said Saturday. "We're happy with the way we played. Now going back to Minnesota we expect them to come out and be skating. They always seem to be on the puck and create a lot of chances there. They had one of the best home records in the League."

The dynamic created by the switch in venues should have the Jets on heightened alert, Lowry said.

"I think Minnesota, especially at home, they're able to play a good transition game," he said. "They always find ways to get in behind your defence and create those odd-man rushes.

"I think it's going to be important that we try to slow them down that way and just continue playing like we have been here. I think, especially last game, we were really on the puck and really controlled (the game) for large stretches of time."

Winnipeg's travel to Minnesota was cancelled because of bad weather Saturday. The Jets will try to travel Sunday morning.

"I think in the playoffs, momentum really doesn't carry over from game to game," Winnipeg defenseman Josh Morrissey said. "So every night it's a new battle. We've played really well in these first two games, I think sort of played exactly how we wanted to, and now going into [Minnesota], they have loud fans and it's a tough rink to play in. We've got to be ready to go. It's a whole new game."

The Jets did a good job staying out of the penalty box in the first two games. The Wild had one power play in Winnipeg's 3-2 win in Game 1, and four in Game 2, although two came in the final five minutes of the third period when the Jets were ahead 3-0 and 4-0.

Winnipeg has had five power plays in the series. The Jets were 1-for-2 in Game 1 and 0-for-3 in Game 2, although the third one covered the final seven seconds of the third period.

"It's been really good," Maurice said of the Jets' discipline. "You're watching for sticks more than anything else. That's not a carelessness but a sometimes overexuberance. We've been good with our sticks, a tripping penalty and some roughing penalties that both teams have had are pretty standard right now."

The Athletic https://theathletic.com/314386/2018/04/14/wild-jets-playoffs-st-paul-0-2-hole-bruce-boudreau- zucker-granlund-staal-dumba/?redirected=1

Down 0-2 yet again, Wild hope return to St. Paul can spark struggling offense

By Michael Russo

Please, whatever you do, DON’T stop if you’ve read this before … because you have every postseason since 2013.

The Wild are once again in an 0-2 series hole.

“Unfortunately, I feel like we always find ourselves down 0-2,” veteran Zach Parise said. “It's beginning to be a bad habit of ours.”

Well, not exactly “beginning to be.”

It’s an annual habit.

Since 2013, the Wild, with largely the same core of players, are a ridiculous 1-15 in Games 1 and 2 (0-8 in Game 2s) of a series. And once again, if the Wild plan to advance in this particular series against the ever-confident Winnipeg Jets looking primed for a long playoff run, they’ll somehow have to win four of their next five games starting with Sunday night’s Game 3 at Xcel Energy Center.

Oh, and by the way, the Jets have won 13 of their past 14 games and haven’t lost at home since Feb. 27.

With Mother Nature doing her best Saturday to make the hockey squad from Winnipeg feel right at home in Minnesota with a mid-April blizzard that caused the Jets’ team plane to be diverted to Duluth, coach Bruce Boudreau nevertheless summoned his entire team to St. Paul for a noontime practice designed to accomplish two things: Lift his despondent team’s spirit and fix its game, particularly inside the cobweb of a neutral zone.

“I think it was both of that, yeah,” Boudreau said. “No matter how you cut it, guys play for seven months and if they go down 0-2, they’re a little bit disappointed. But it’s not like losing, getting down 0-2 in your own building and then having to go to their building.”

No, that was just last year against the St. Louis Blues.

This time around, the Wild return to an arena where they collected the second-most home points in the NHL (62). They hope Wild fans are as loud and enthusiastic as Jets fans were Wednesday and Friday and not too, let’s call it, buzzkilled by the fact that their favorite team yet again faces an uphill climb to escape this series victorious.

Teams that hold a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff game have an all-time series record of 312-49 (86.4 percent).

“We want to have a great start (in Game 3),” Parise said. “We know the crowd is going to be very good. At the same time we have to give them something to cheer about. We have to play our best game (Sunday).”

Boudreau ended practice Saturday by gathering all his players. In a pep talk, Boudreau reminded them that they have lost six times in regulation in 41 games in St. Paul. Overall, the Wild have only lost three in a row once this season.

“They’re the next best home team in the NHL, so they’re going to get into their comfort zone real good. It’s a loud building,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “Our game won’t change, the things that we want to accomplish on the ice, but it’s going to feel different on the bench. In that building, the puck crosses the blue line and the crowd is expecting the chance. It just needs to get near the net and they get pretty excited.”

In Winnipeg the past two games, it felt like the Wild barely crossed the blue line to ever get a chance. In the third period alone, the Wild were outshot 36-7 in two games. In the final 16:02 of Game 1, the Wild had one shot. In the first 15:05 of the third period in Game 2, the Wild had no shots.

Why?

“Honestly, I think it’s neutral zone,” said Jason Zucker, who along with top players like Eric Staal, Nino Niederreiter and Charlie Coyle has no points in the series. “If we get through the neutral zone a little bit better, we’re going to get in on the forecheck better and I think then it’s also going to eliminate some of their quick-strike offense. It’s not necessarily that we’ve given them so many odd-man rushes or those type things. It’s that they’re getting it and they’re chipping it in and they’re getting in on our D-men, and when we’re back in our zone and we’re chipping it out, by the time we chip it out and dump it in, we’re changing and can’t get in on the forecheck.

Digging a hole in the playoffs In seven of eight series in the Parise-Suter era the Wild have gone down 0-2, losing five so far. They now face the same uphill climb in their series against the Jets.

Year Opp. Round Games 1 and 2 Series result 2013 CHI First L 2-1 (OT), L 5-2 CHI won 4-1 2014 COL First L 5-4 (OT), L 4-2 MIN won 4-3 2014 CHI Second L 5-2, L 4-1 CHI won 4-2 2015 STL First W 4-2, L 4-1 MIN won 4-2 2015 CHI Second L 4-3, L 4-1 CHI won 4-0 2016 DAL First L 4-0, L 2-1 DAL won 4-2 2017 STL First L 2-1 (OT), L 2-1 STL won 4-1 2018 WPG First L 3-2, L 4-1 TBD

“We’ve got to get to our game earlier in our shifts so we can put them in their zone a few times and put them on their heels.”

Zucker says the problem stems from center-ice.

“They play a stingy system as far as they don’t really pressure the first pass,” he said. “They want our D-man to want to carry it a little bit and they’ll pressure later on, so it’s kind of a bit, I don’t want to call it a trap, but in a way it’s like a 1-2-2 trap where they just pressure and then their D-men are always coming forward at you. They’re staying pretty patient. They’re aggressive, but they sit back. They let our D-man have control and one guy kind of forcing and then once you start coming up, they have two guys kind of waiting in the weeds and then they have their other two D-men really waiting back in the weeds coming forward also.

“But, if you come with speed, they’re in trouble. It’s got to be like a bang-bang, crisp on the tape, tape-to-tape pass, and then you’re gone. Then you’ll have a few rushes. But they’re good at their system.”

In Saturday’s practice, Boudreau reunited the Zucker-Staal-Mikael Granlund line that was so prolific in late February. Boudreau said he made the change because the Wild haven’t mustered up a lot of chances (three goals and 37 shots).

In one three-game stretch six weeks ago, the Zucker-Staal-Granlund trio combined for 26 points.

“Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to get 26 points in three games, but I think it can be really good,” Zucker quipped. “I think we can complement each other really well and as long as we skate and we battle and we compete and get pucks in their zone, I think we’ll be alright.”

One concern: The health of Matt Dumba, who didn’t practice Saturday. Ryan Murphy, who has never played an NHL playoff game, rotated in and out of rushes.

Reading the tea leaves from inside the locker room, Dumba may be hurt. Boudreau’s story is that after Dumba played about half of Games 1 and 2, “I just told him to stay home.”

But the coach seemed to have a slip of the tongue when he said, “He should be OK. Well, he is OK. He should be well-rested for (Sunday).”

Having the last line change in Games 3 and 4 should help Boudreau get better matchups, particularly getting the Staal line away from the Kyle Connor-Mark Scheifele-Blake Wheeler line and defensemen and Josh Morrissey.

“We’ve played a very fast game,” said Morrissey. “Our forwards have been extremely hard in not giving them any clean ice to make passes on breakouts and when they’re skating and really in the right position and all over the puck, it makes it easier for our D to stay up and have a good gap as well. I think we’ve played two solid games and sort of have limited their time and space with the puck. They do have some guys there that have a lot of skill and can be dangerous, but if you limit their time and space and sort of seem like we’re all over them with our forward group, it allows our D to be all over them as well. That’s the style we want to play.”

Parise said it’s imperative the Wild make the proper adjustments and not just rest on the fact they’re in the safer confines of their home barn.

“By no means is it, 'Oh we're at home. It's a free couple wins,’” Parise said. “These guys are playing really well and we're going to have to play much better. Regardless where the game is we're going to have to play much better than we have in the first two games. It's not as if we can just go in and expect an easy game. It's going to be very tough for us.

“We have been really out of sync. Our timing is off. We aren't putting each other in good position. We are almost passing on our problems. There's still too many one-and-dones. Not enough extended periods in the offensive zone. Not wearing them down. That's what they did to us. They wore us down. I feel like we've been checking for the last two games and not having the puck much, so we want to kind of flip the script and do that to them.

“If we can support each other a little bit more and give each other more options and stay tight I think we're going to look fast and play faster and get out of the zone better.” https://theathletic.com/313830/2018/04/14/game-2-walkthrough-jets-pressure-wreaking-havoc- with-wilds-game/

Game 2 Walkthrough: Jets' pressure wreaking havoc with Wild's game

By Evan Sporer

Five minutes into Friday's Game 2 against the Winnipeg Jets, most — even the Wild players — had to be convinced by their start, and potential to possibly leave Bell MTS Place with a split.

After holding a 2-1 lead in the third period of Game 1, very much putting themselves in a position to steal that series-opening contest, the Wild held a 5-0 advantage in shots on goal 5:01 into the first period of Game 2. Even though the Jets — like in Game 1 — managed to get their bearings by the end of the first period, the shot counter ending up 13-9 in Winnipeg's favor, it very much felt like the Wild were in the game, still scoreless up to that point.

But then the second and third periods happened, and man, the Jets were literally just everywhere, and the Wild had no answers.

Minnesota fired eight shots on goal combined over those final two periods, five at 5-on-5, while the Jets peppered Devan Dubnyk with 31 total shots, 84 percent of the Wild's total through six periods of this series.

While the Jets had the better of the run-of-play for the first four periods of this series as well, the second and third in Game 2 felt very different — entirely more dominant.

Minnesota talked about it a lot in the postgame, but this was very much a factor of a lack of puck possession, which can be attributed to a few things Winnipeg did really well, and the Wild did not do so well.

One of the reasons we use shot metrics as a proxy for puck possession is because they do a pretty decent job of depicting who had the puck more. (You can't attempt a shot unless the puck is on your team's stick, obviously.) On Friday night, the Wild attempted 12 shots at even- strength over the final two periods of game action; the Jets attempted 41, a commanding 77.36 percent of the attempts share.

There were problems in all three zones for the Wild Friday night:

In the defensive zone, when the Wild won the puck back, you saw a lot of the Jets defensemen “being activated.” It put the kibosh on many of the Wild's possessions before they could even get anything going.

In the neutral zone, the Jets challenged Wild puck carriers in one-on-one situations, not letting them really gain much momentum or string together many clean zone entries with speed to set up cleanly in the offensive zone. There were so many sequences on Friday where when the Wild did get the puck, it was quickly back on the Jets' sticks. Said Zach Parise, “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 Jets are making it pretty hard, too.

In the offensive zone, the Wild had difficulty getting numbers forward. There were a bunch of instances where the Wild finally broke in, but found themselves in a 1-on-2 or 1-on-3.

Let's take a look.

Mikael Granlund is one of the Wild's smoother, more effective players at getting them through the neutral zone. This was right at the beginning of the third period, after the Jets had dominated the second and taken a 1-0 lead.

Simple wheel play here, with Minnesota winning the puck back, and Granlund, the winger lined up on the strong side, springing toward the opposite wall with the defenseman (Nick Seeler) rimming the puck around.

But as Granlund meets the puck along the boards, he's quickly got Joe Morrow breathing down his neck. It would be difficult to double-back with a Jets forward (Kyle Connor) in front of him atop the right circle, and while Granlund has an outlet with Zach Parise flying up the middle, it would require a quick, difficult pass with his back to his teammate.

As Granlund is being forced to process all of this in the blink of an eye, Morrow plays through the body, using his size and positional advantage to root Granlund off the puck. Connor continues up the zone and is the next man in, and Winnipeg stymies the Wild's attempt to get the puck out.

Notice how even if Granlund had connected with Parise, Morrow has both Connor and Mark Scheifele (to Connor's right) behind the level of the play. Not only have the Jets been so difficult to crack because of how aggressive their defensemen have been, but on the occasions Minnesota has survived that first wave, Winnipeg has also been meticulous in having a forward (usually the center) rotate back so they're not left shorthanded.

There's another byproduct to this pressure. To borrow a football analogy, it was much like the mental clock of a quarterback. If you keep taking snaps and getting sacked or hit on every drop back, it's going to expedite your release.

There were other times where it felt the Wild had more time to make a pass but the consistent pressure by Winnipeg defensemen made them rush through and botch the play.

Pretty similar setup: A defensive zone faceoff, but on the opposite side, with the Wild this time dropping a defenseman (Carson Soucy) to help work this puck around the boards. He'll get back to the goal line, provide a target for Nate Prosser, and then wheel around the net where Jordan Greenway will already be waiting near the blue line.

Soucy picks his head up and has an open Greenway, and easily hits him with the pass. Now we just saw Granlund in this type of situation where Morrow was able to pressure him into turning the puck over. Plenty of Wild forwards found themselves in that position on Friday, and many of them — the 6-foot-6 Greenway included — paid the physical price. So perhaps it was for fear of turning the puck over, or perhaps it was for fear of getting hit, or perhaps just a misplay in general, but this puck is off Greenway's stick very quickly.

Only there's a problem: Whether this was an attempted touch-pass to Eric Staal (which misses the mark) or just a misplay because he had one eye off the puck and peeking for an oncoming check, there were no Jets sweaters in the vicinity. Greenway had time to accept the pass, turn up ice, and carry the puck through the neutral zone, but instead, it was right back on a Winnipeg stick.

Now the clip continues to illuminate another point, how these sequences fed into each other. That's an easy play for the Jets to pick off in the neutral zone, and they reload, and get the puck deep again. While the Wild regain possession, there are four Minnesota skaters essentially below the dots. Staal chips the puck up the boards because he's got Brandon Tanev in his face, and again, the whole “constantly under duress” thing really seemed to take its toll on Minnesota.

And while Nino Niederreiter actually gets to that puck, Josh Morrissey is immediately able to pressure him, Tanev doubles back and is the next man in, and the Wild are quickly dispossessed. On so many breakouts, the Jets were able to isolate a single Wild skater on the puck, get two or more blue sweaters there, and muscle their way back into control.

That really can make life difficult for any team. It's why there were stretches when it almost seemed like the Wild were shorthanded on Friday. Winnipeg consistently had a numbers advantage around the play, and, like Parise said, really made it seem like the ice was shrunk given how crowded things were.

Both teams are changing here, so one would assume it's a pretty level playing field. The Wild defensemen (Spurgeon and Seeler) exchange passes while they probe for a route up ice. Seeler eventually lands on this pass to Greenway, but look how tight the window is: Tanev is practically on his hip before the puck is even released.

But while the Wild end up losing that puck, they work hard to get it back, and Staal is able to slip a little close-quarters pass to Greenway at the blue line to regain the zone. Behind the play you've got Adam Lowry busting back to apply pressure.

Lowry makes up that ground and is able to really rush Greenway. He kind of long-arms the pass (even with his reach) and you can see how small the margin for error is for the Wild. Maybe if Greenway accepts the past in tight on his body he's able to shovel it across to Niederreiter.

But Lowry is able to funnel Greenway into the middle of the ice, the Jets block off an area and create a 4-on-2, and the Wild are quickly chasing the puck once again.

It really felt like each sequence was a broken record of the one before it. There were so many instances like this of Minnesota either getting turned back in the neutral zone, or finally breaking through, only to have one guy trying to take on three.

And that's what fed into the lack of puck possession and created the lopsided for-and-against attempts differential. NaturalStatTrick.com visualizes what the shot counter looks like with a nifty heat map. This was Wild-Jets from Game 2, and you can really see how dominant Winnipeg was.

The Jets deserve a lot of credit in this. Yes, the Wild struggled to make plays in Game 2, but a big part of that was how stubborn and fast Winnipeg was in all three zones.

There definitely are areas Minnesota can improve in to counter what the Jets are doing, and the adjustments the Wild can make heading into Game 3 will be paramount in establishing any success.

“I feel like we've been playing on three-quarters of the rink for two games now,” Parise said after Game 2.

That quote and assessment felt very accurate in terms of what seemed to be holding Minnesota back. Where the Jets were flinging 60-plus-foot passes across the neutral zone with players flying all over the place, the Wild looked like they were confining themselves to small areas.

The Wild have time to move this puck up ice, but they end up forcing their way through a small portion of the zone and restricting their options.

Prosser lays this puck back to Soucy, while Mikko Koivu and Parise are hopping over the boards. They're both going to make their way across to provide puck support, but the Wild are slowly squeezing the width out of this play.

Because as this puck starts to get to the next level, the Wild are using half of the neutral zone, width-wise, to try to move the puck ahead. It's an overloaded breakout, which can work, but only if you can reverse the puck and take advantage of a teammate on the weak side.

But all five Minnesota skaters are bunched in such a tight area, this puck ends up getting dumped deep and the Jets quickly turn it up ice and out of their zone. Had there been a forward closer to the benches, a quick pass back to a defensemen and another to that weak-side forward could spread out the play and maybe give it some legs. Here though, the Jets don't have to do too much defending, just let a crowded neutral zone play itself out and into their hands.

There was one Wild shift late in the first period by the line of Staal, Niederreiter, and Jason Zucker that might have been Minnesota's best at 5-on-5 of the night. It illuminated what Minnesota needs to do to be successful against this type of pressure, and is perhaps one of the key takeaways for the Wild from Game 2.

This all begins with a patient, measured play by Niederreiter. He gets stood up in the neutral zone, but instead of trying to muscle his way through or force a pass to a teammate, he reloads by playing this puck back to Spurgeon.

When Spurgeon goes across to Soucy, Staal is cutting across the middle, at least forcing the Jets to take notice of him. Niederreiter rolls off his own back-pass and continues up the wall. The Wild have forwards on opposite sides of the neutral zone, giving the breakout some width, and opening up a passing lane for Soucy.

And Soucy hits Niederreiter, who breaks across the line with numbers and options. He can attack the goal, or draw in a defender and leave the puck for Staal.

From there, the Wild were able to attack the net a few times and spend some time with the Jets hemmed in. Those shifts were few and far between on Friday, but it was in large because the Wild couldn't string together many passing sequences like this, where the Jets had to play on their toes.

It's still remarkable how well the Wild were doing for long stretches despite not having ownership of the puck. Minnesota still is so structured in its own defensive zone that with where the Jets were taking the shots from (and the help of Devan Dubnyk) you get a 1-0 game almost midway through the third period and that faint hope of, “one shot can tie this game.”

But the sheer ownership of the puck has been too much for Minnesota to overcome thus far. To get back into this series, they'll need to be quicker, more decisive, and more creative in the neutral zone to create time in the Jets end, like on that shift in the first period by the Staal line. If not, there will be more games of lopsided shot totals, and the Wild really putting themselves behind the eight-ball. https://theathletic.com/313384/2018/04/15/dellow-through-two-games-jets-on-cusp-of-historic-5- on-5-pounding-of-wild/

Dellow: Through two games, Jets on cusp of historic 5-on-5 pounding of Wild

By Tyler Dellow

There's a cliche in hockey that a playoff series doesn't really start until the home team loses a game. By that standard, the Jets-Wild series hasn't started yet. Having watched the games though, it doesn't feel like the Wild are all that close to the Jets and, barring some sort of a miracle, it looks like they're going to be polished off handily by the Jets, who are up 2-0 in the best-of-seven first-round series.

Some of these failings are hard to pin on the coaching staff. Through two games, the Wild have been getting run over at 5-on-5. As I discussed prior to the series, the loss of Ryan Suter put the Wild into a really bad position because they don't really have anyone who you'd remotely want to push into a top-four role. It's not just that though — there isn't a Wild defenceman with a Corsi% that's topped 40 per cent through two games. Only two forwards — Marcus Foligno and Joel Eriksson Ek — are over 40 per cent. It's been rough.

Even if you accept that Winnipeg's a deeper team than the Wild and that this is exacerbated by Suter's absence, getting outshot 75-28 with a 33.9 per cent Corsi% is a pretty remarkable achievement over two games for a playoff team. Looking a little more closely, there's something bizarre going on. Through two games, Minnesota's had 43 defensive zone faceoffs at 5-on-5, going 26-17. Not bad. Winnipeg's only had 15 defensive zone faceoffs, going 8-7.

There's a little bit of an icing effect here but not a huge one — at 5-on-5, the Wild have iced the puck seven times to four for the Jets. The Wild just seem to be struggling to slow down the Jets at all, even in situations where they should be able to do so. For example, the winning goal in Game 1 came on a Minnesota shift that began with a defensive zone faceoff win. The Wild were unable to clear and it ended up in the back of the net.

These things happen. Unfortunately, it's part of a broader trend. On their 26 shifts that have begun with defensive zone faceoff wins to this point in the series, they've allowed shot attempts on 50 per cent of them. In the regular season, they allowed shot attempts on just 37 per cent of those shifts. (Obviously, we're in the land of small samples but that's the playoffs.) That goal is representative of a larger problem over the course of the first two games for Minnesota.

It's showing up elsewhere, too. Minnesota's struggled to produce anything after winning neutral zone faceoffs. Their forecheck hasn't slowed up the Jets after Minnesota loses an offensive zone faceoff. The Jets have just gone through them over and over. It's hard to nail it down to “The Wild need to do this and this better” because they've been getting hammered at basically everything 5-on-5 related. Which is why I kind of look at the players rather than the coaching.

History is always helpful when it comes to understanding how total a beatdown has been. Hockey started with the better data era in 2007-08. Since then, 86 teams have gone down 2-0 in a series. The only other team with a worse Corsi% through two games than Minnesota's against Winnipeg was the in a 2007-08 series against Detroit, a possession powerhouse. Colorado lost the first two games with a 33.83 per cent Corsi%. Why take it to a second digit after the decimal? Well, the Wild are at a 33.85 per cent Corsi% through two games. It really is about as bad as it can get.

Generally speaking, it's more difficult to get terribly outshot while losing. The other team sits back, your team is pressing…poof! Score effects. When you look at the teams that have won the first two games of a series with a 60 per cent or better Corsi% since 2007-08, you've got the 2007-08 Red Wings (against Colorado, Nashville and Pittsburgh), the 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks (against Minnesota) and the 2008-09 Chicago Blackhawks (against ). The 2011-12 Los Angeles Kings just miss this list, at 40.3 per cent. And this year's Winnipeg Jets. That's some impressive company.

As I said above, this seems like a talent issue from Minnesota's perspective more than anything. Winnipeg's incredibly deep, the Wild aren't, Winnipeg's top end is better, and the Wild have some key players nicked up. Unless you think that Suter is one of the best players in the world, the gulf between the Wild and Jets looks vast. I'm not sure that the series returning to Minnesota will help the Wild all that much — there just seem to be too many holes to fill.

It's not all on the players, though. Coming in to the series, I was wondering how the Wild would generate power-play goals against the Jets. Colleague Murat Ates was on the same page, foreseeing that Minnesota would end up blasting away from the outside, unable to generate anything from in close.

In Game 1, the Wild had but a single power play. Everything they generated was from the outside. Gord Miller thought there was a deflection in there but I'm skeptical. At the very least, it wasn't really a shot intended to be tipped — those tend not be fired in three feet off the ice, some of the guys I've played beer league with notwithstanding.

As I pointed out before the series, when the Wild have scored power-play goals with their 3F2D this year, the goals have tended to be scored by the forwards from in tight.

So running a power play that's bombing away from the outside with no realistic chance of generating deflections is kind of a waste of time, both generally and in the specific case of how the Wild have scored goals. Game 2 saw some improvement on this front, in that the Wild started generating some things from the side of the ice and where there was a realistic possibility of a deflection. More than half of it was still just aimless shots from the outside.

(In fairness – I still don't like these shots from the outside particularly, but I liked the job that Mikko Koivu did setting a few screens for the shooter, which you'll notice in the video.)

That said, there were some better looks for the Wild in Game 2, including a goal.

You have to keep the power play stuff in perspective — the Wild scored 6.9 GF/60 in the two games in Winnipeg, which is about what an average power play does, which seems to be about what they are. That said, if they want to get past the Jets, particularly with the way in which Winnipeg has been running over them at 5-on-5, they're going to need to find a way to squeeze some extra goals out.

Game 2 was probably a write-off either way, but a Game 1 power-play goal would have been huge for Minnesota. If they're going to find a way past Winnipeg, consistently finding a way to get inside and avoiding wasted shots from the outside would be big.

So through two games, the Jets look imperious and as if they're cruising toward the second round. Minnesota's probably down to hoping that a combination of bounces and Devan Dubnyk can steal the series. That's not a fun place to be.

TSN.ca https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/will-home-ice-be-a-key-factor-in-jets-wild-series~1371083 (VIDEO LINK)

Will home ice be a key factor in Jets/Wild series?

TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger dicusses the increased physicality between the Wild and Jets in Game 2, whether home ice will be a key factor in the series, and what kind of changes Bruce Boudreau might be thinking about ahead of a crucial Game 3 for Minnesota. https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/jets-expect-raucous-minnesota-fans-to-give-the-wild-a-big-boost-in- game-3~1371082 (VIDEO LINK)

Jets expect raucous Minnesota fans to give the Wild a big boost in Game 3

Although happy to take advantage of home ice in the first two games of the series, the Jets know they are in for a challenge when they travel to Minnesota for Game 3, especially with the Wild being the second best home team in the NHL. www.winnipegjets.com https://www.nhl.com/jets/news/jets-prepare-for-new-challenges-as-series-shifts-to-minnesota/c- 297986794

Jets prepare for new challenges as series shifts to Minnesota Winnipeg leads best-of-seven series 2-0 by Mitchell Clinton @MitchellClinton / WinnipegJets.com

WINNIPEG - After showing why they have the best home record in the National Hockey League by winning the first two games of the best-of-seven series with the Minnesota Wild, the Winnipeg Jets face a new challenge on Sunday night.

That challenge comes at Xcel Energy Centre, where the Wild hold the league's second best home record.

"They're going to get into their comfort zone. It's a loud building. What we need to do is handle it," said head coach Paul Maurice. "Our game won't change, the things we want to accomplish on the ice. But it's going to feel different on the bench. In that building, if the puck crosses the blue line, the crowd is expecting a chance. It just has to get near the net and they get pretty excited."

The Jets and Wild split the two regular season meetings in Minnesota this season, with the Wild coming out on top in the last of the two meetings on Jan. 13.

Overall, the Wild finished 27-6-8 in their home arena, and Adam Lowry says the Jets are expecting some pushback from their first round opponents, and Central Division rivals.

"We expect them to come out and to be skating. They always seem to be on the puck and creating a lot of chances there," said Adam Lowry.

"Especially at home, they have an extremely good transition game. They always find ways to get behind your defence and create those odd-man rushes. I think it's going to be important that we try and slow them down that way, and just continue playing like we have been (in Winnipeg)."

The Jets out shot the Wild 84-37 in the two games at Bell MTS Place. In fact, the Wild didn't register a shot for over 20 minutes in Game Two, allowing the Jets to increase a 1-0 lead to 4-0.

Minnesota's frustration boiled over the final 20 seconds, as a total of 70 penalty minutes were handed out in that time frame prior to the final buzzer.

Defenceman Josh Morrissey says while tempers flared in that moment, he doesn't expect it to creep into Game Three.

"Each game is a totally new battle. Emotions are high. It goes along with this time of year," said Morrissey, who had four hits of his own in 19:18 of ice time on Friday.

"We've played really well in these first two games, and sort of played exactly how we want to. Going in to Minnesota, they have loud fans and it's a tough rink to play in. We have to be ready to go."