The Winnipeg Jets look to maintain a good run when they visit the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday.
The Jets head to the Windy City on a 7-3-0 stretch over their past 10 games. They kicked off November with a three-game winning streak, which included a 4-0 victory over the Blackhawks on Nov. 5.
Since then, they’ve won four of seven but have only won back-to-back games once, alternating wins and losses over their past five contests.
“You look at things you can improve on, what caused the issues,” defenseman Josh Morrissey said. “A sign of a good team is trying not to ever lose two in a row. That’s a goal I think every team in the league has.”
Morrissey has delivered offensively for the club, leading the team with 20 points (four goals, 16 assists) after scoring the overtime winner in their win against the Dallas Stars on Friday.
Three of his four goals have stood as game-winning goals. All four have come over the past three weeks, with three of them coming in the past three games.
“He’s just been great for us all year,” Jets coach Rick Bowness said. “And when you get him into a foot race, then look out. He’s just been outstanding for us all year.”
Center Mark Scheifele, who leads Winnipeg with 10 goals, has gone five games without a goal and has been held without a point in each of his past four games.
After impressing in the early weeks of the season with a 4-2-0 run, the Blackhawks have faltered, going 2-8-4 in the 14 games since, including an 0-5-1 skid that they’ll take into Sunday’s contest.
“It’s not a lack of being able to get the job done,” Chicago center Andreas Athanasiou said. “It’s just kind of just finding the balances working through the downs and just keep building as a team.”
The latest defeat came as a shootout loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Friday, in which Chicago rallied twice to tie it and earn a point.
“It is frustrating,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “It’s disappointing sitting in that room as a player, putting all the effort out for 60 minutes and not having a point or only getting one (point) out of three pretty good games are good efforts as a team.”
Captain Jonathan Toews is enjoying a bounce-back campaign after scoring only 12 goals in 71 games last season. The 34-year-old has eight goals through 20 games thus far, putting him on pace for 33 over a full 82-game season.
He had a seven-game point streak from the end of October through early November and had points in three straight before being held off the scoresheet against Montreal.
“I think at this point I feel I’m getting better and better and getting closer and closer to playing the game at a high level and at a level that I feel, maybe, I haven’t reached before, because of the experience I’ve had over the course of my career,” Toews told NHL.com recently.
–Field Level Media
