JETS FIND THE CURE FOR LAS VEGAS FLU

Stanley Cup quest offers immunity from Sin City’s side-effects, writes Paul Friesen.

LAS VEGAS If there’s such a thing as the Las Vegas flu, the Winnipeg Jets believe they don’t have to worry about it at this time of year.

Apparently, this is a bug that only afflicts visiting teams in the NHL regular season.

The symptoms include a propensity to go out on the town the evening before games, leading to drowsiness or light-headedness on the day of games.

The not-so-mysterious condition helped the Golden Knights produce a 29-10-2 home record in their first season, a key reason for their success as an expansion team.

But the Jets insist they’ve seen no sign of the bug since arriving Tuesday for games 3 and 4 (Wednesday and Friday) of the Western Conference final.

“You get that out of your system during the regular season,” defenceman Ben Chiarot said before Wednesday’s game. “Playoffs is not a time to be enjoying Vegas.”

So obviously Chiarot and his teammates had some fun before their regular-season game here in November, when they also enjoyed a couple days off ?

“No,” Chiarot said. “We were working out and practising the whole time. We enjoyed the rink.”

Even at night?

“Even at night.”

Not that this proves anything, but the Jets dropped that one and only visit to Vegas during the season 5-2, their only regulation loss in a 10-game stretch at the time.

Fellow defenceman Josh Morrissey dismissed the notion the Golden Knights’ success at home was padded by opposition partying.

“Everybody understands how good that team is over there,” Morrissey said. “So when people are talking about how good their home record is, I think you should look at how good their team is before anything else.”

Strangely enough, home teams were just 1-4 combined in the league’s two conference finals going into Wednesday’s Game 3.

The Jets and Vegas split two games in Winnipeg, while the Washington-Tampa Bay series has yet to produce a winner on home ice in three games.

Teams scratch and claw all season to get home-ice advantage and this happens.

“Who knows (why)?” Jets forward Mathieu Perreault said. “The ice is the same size, the boards are the same height, the benches are the same size. I guess we fight all year to make the playoffs more than anything else. We never talked about getting home ice. It was just getting in the playoffs.”

‘REALDEAL’

A lot of people needed a lot of convincing to acknowledge Vegas was a contender.

For Chiarot, that came late in the first half of the season.

“They came out of the gate pretty hot and you think it’s just teams taking them lightly,” Chiarot said.

“It was around Christmastime or just before. We played them and we saw they’re the real deal. They’re quick and they play hard and they stay with it the whole game.”

The Jets won a back-and-forth 7-4 meeting in Winnipeg in early December that included an empty-net goal.

That’s around the time Chiarot became convinced his own team was pretty darned good.

“The first half of any season your team’s figuring out what you have and what kind of team you’re going to be,” Chiarot said. “The second half you feel the chemistry in the room and how we play and stick with it. We had some games where we came back, down a few goals. Those are the signs of a good team. Teams that can go far.”

Combined with some high-end talent, that’s a lethal combination.

“We’ve got some of the best players in the league,” Chiarot said. “We’ve got a lot of different talent. But it’s funny, that’s not the big story on our team. It’s the collective and how we perform. Our top guys are character guys. That’s what’s important. Everybody tugging in the same direction.”

‘COCKY’ AND GOOD

Vegas forward Jonathan Marchessault’s idol was fellow Quebecer Martin St. Louis and the five-foot-nine Marchessault plays a lot like the former star, too. He even has some of the same attitude.

“He’s a cocky little guy,” Knights coach Gerard Gallant said. “He jokes around in the locker-room. He has lots of fun. He has lots to say. But our players love him. Some people might take it the wrong way. But in our locker-room, our group really likes him.”

Marchessault didn’t score in three games against Winnipeg during the regular season, but had two goals in Vegas’ Game 2 win.