Good teams are quickly finding out they can’t take their foot off the gas against the Anaheim Ducks.
The Jets learned the hard way two weeks ago in Anaheim, so they likely won’t get caught looking past the Ducks when the teams meet on Thursday as Winnipeg opens an eight-game homestand.
The latest top-tier team to fall to Anaheim was the New Jersey Devils, whose 3-2 loss to the Ducks on Tuesday night knocked them out of first place in the Metropolitan Division.
“We thought it was going to come easy,” Devils forward Timo Meier said after the defeat.
Two days earlier, the Ducks stormed back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Edmonton Oilers 5-3.
In both games, Anaheim forward Ryan Strome scored the tiebreaking goal in the closing minutes.
“We’re starting to play good hockey,” Strome said after the win against New Jersey. “We’ve got a tough couple games coming up, but good to close the year with a win.”
After the Ducks take on the Jets, they will face a rematch against the Oilers the following night in Edmonton.
What has made Anaheim increasingly dangerous is its increased production from a second line.
The Ducks were having success with their first line of Strome, Troy Terry and Frank Vatrano, but now Mason McTavish, Cutter Gauthier and Robby Fabbri are beginning to click as well.
The trio has accounted for seven goals and eight assists in the past five games.
“We are communicating well on the ice, on the bench,” Fabbri said. “We are just complementing each other right now. Cutter is skating great, creating plays. (McTavish) is playing like a horse out there. It is just going well right now. Just trying to ride the high.”
The Jets had a 2-1 lead against Anaheim with five minutes left on Dec. 18, but the Ducks scored twice, the go-ahead goal coming from Terry with 26 seconds left.
The Jets reeled off four straight wins following that setback to expand their lead in the Central Division, but the streak came to a halt in a 5-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday in Denver. The score was tied entering the final period.
“Any time you can go into the third period tied 2-2 in this rink, you hope that you can come out on the right side of it,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “We didn’t.”
Winnipeg was playing its third game in four days since returning from the Christmas break and had hosted the Nashville Predators the night before.
“We’re all pros,” Jets defenseman Neal Pionk said. “We’ve been through it before, and we get some teams at home that go through that travel, so (we) can’t use that as an excuse.”
In Winnipeg’s extended homestand, the first three games are against sub-.500 teams. The Jets have been one of the best home teams in the NHL at 14-3-1.
“At the end of the day, it would have been nice to dig in a little bit more and find a way to come up with a win (against Colorado),” Jets forward Morgan Barron told reporters. “The effort is there. It’s just (about) finding ways to kind of make those plays at the end of the game. We’re a resilient group. We know that. We’ll reset, go home and kind of get on a streak here.”
–Field Level Media
