It has been a miserable season so far, to say the least, for the Winnipeg Jets. But with two straight victories following an 11-game losing streak, the Jets can secure their longest winning streak since Nov. 1 when they host the New York Islanders on Tuesday.
Winnipeg snapped its skid, during which it went 0-7-4, with a 5-1 victory against the Los Angeles Kings on Friday.
On Sunday against the New Jersey Devils, the Jets tied the game late in the second period before Tanner Pearson connected for the go-ahead goal six minutes into the third.
“It’s a tie game going into the third, those are the games where you’ve got to put your foot down,” Pearson said. “What we went through (during the losing streak) was hard. We got that one and, hopefully, we can keep stringing these ones together.”
The 4-3 win over the Devils marked the first time the Jets recorded consecutive victories since Nov. 15-18. They haven’t won three straight since Oct. 28 to Nov. 1.
At the time, they were 9-3-0 and second in the NHL (behind the Colorado Avalanche) with a league-best plus-15 goal differential. After their 11th straight loss on Jan. 8, Winnipeg owned last place in the NHL.
“That’s frustrating that it took so long for that. But, it doesn’t seem real,” Jets forward Cole Perfetti said. “There were some stretches where we didn’t play our best. It’s nice to get over the hump and start playing better hockey and start getting some wins.”
The team entered Monday sitting 31st in the league, just two points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks. The Jets are nine points back of the Los Angeles Kings for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference, but there are six teams between them and the Kings.
“We’re a streaky team,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “We liked streaks last year, we’ve got streaks going this year. We’re streaky.”
The Islanders head into the matchup owning six wins in their past nine games (6-3-0). They’re coming off a 4-3 overtime win over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday, a contest in which they erased a trio of one-goal deficits before Simon Holmstrom completed the comeback with a tally 1:34 into the extra frame.
“That stuff doesn’t really faze us,” defenseman Tony DeAngelo said. “We just keep with the game, and fortunately, lately we’ve been able to tie these games each time we go down. The same thing happened against Toronto (a 4-3 overtime win on Jan. 3). So it’s good on our team, it just shows character.”
It was Holmstrom’s second goal of the game in what was a three-point night for the 24-year-old.
“He was again, outstanding,” New York coach Patrick Roy said. “Right now, he’s playing with a lot of confidence when he uses body, protects that puck, and I was happy to see him score on that OT play.”
The Swedish winger has 23 points (12 goals, 11 assists) in 44 games this season, his fourth NHL campaign. He’s on a similar pace as last season, when he scored a career-high 20 goals in 75 games.
Tuesday’s tilt marks the third of a seven-game road trip for the Islanders.
–Field Level Media
