Just taking off
First playoff series win in over 30 years was fun, but talented Jets hungry for more
If there was one takeaway from the joyous but not overly celebratory Winnipeg Jets dressing room on Friday night, it was that this team has far bigger goals in mind than just winning a playoff series.
Sure it was momentous when the Jets hammered the Minnesota Wild 5-0 on home ice to take the NHL firstround best-of-seven 4-1.
It was obviously a life memory for many fans who had never experienced such a thing before or had to go back 31 years to remember it. Same goes for Jets centre Bryan Little, who had to wait 11 seasons before winning so much as a playoff game.
But the sense of accomplishment was limited with a hard-working group that finished second overall in the NHL standings and realizes it just might have what it takes to make this a deep playoff run.
“We still got tons of work to do,” is how bruising defenceman Dustin Byfuglien so eloquently put it.
“To advance in the playoffs is a big accomplishment, especially when you’re playing a group like that,” added captain Blake Wheeler.
“It’s a great step. It’s not time to dwell on that.”
The Jets took Saturday off to relish the victory and now await the winner of the Nashville Predators-Colorado Avalanche series.
The Avs won 2-1 on Friday night to close the gap in the series to 3-2. Game 6 goes Sunday night in Denver, while if a seventh game is necessary, it will be played in Nashville Tuesday night.
The Jets and their fans have long anticipated a second round matchup with the Predators, who finished first overall but are getting a strong fight from the Avalanche. The longer that series goes, the better for the Jets, who will be well rested when Round 2 gets underway.
As unlikely as it seems, given how good the Predators are, a shocking Avalanche comeback and series win would give the Jets home ice advantage in the next round and allow them to avoid the only team that put up more points then them in the regular season.
Either way, the Jets will return to the ice Sunday and start preparing.
“We’ll have a good idea where it’s going to start in a couple of days,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “I’m pretty sure everything starts Thursday … we’ll see.
“We’ll take the exact same template and prep for next week. We may have to shift it a day — we won’t skate three days in a row — but the routine will be exactly as it was with Minnesota.”
Sticking to that routine seems like a good plan.
The Jets were clearly the better and more well-prepared team in Round 1. Their only slip came on a day when their routine was disrupted by a weather-related travel snafu.
Otherwise, they got great goaltending from Connor Hellebuyck (4-1, 1.93 goals against average, .924 save percentage and two shutouts), contributions from all four lines (Adam Lowry was the only forward who played every game and didn’t record at least a point) and stellar play from a makeshift blueline that a times was missing key players like Josh Morrissey, Tyler Myers, Toby Enstrom and Dmitry Kulikov.
What that suggests is this team can handle just about anything on the adversity scale. And it explains why few players are feeling better than they should right now.
“Our coach has been there, to the Stanley Cup final and that’s a feather in his cap,”
Jets veteran centre Matt Hendricks said. “He’s been talking about it, probably since about three months into the season, that we have that type of team in here.”
The best news for the Jets is that they now have some valuable playoff experience. Ten players on the team played their first playoff games and several more tasted post-season victory for the first time. They experienced the tightness of a few games, the first franchise playoff win in
Game 1, the first loss in Game 3, the first road win in Game 4 and the first chance to close a series out in Game 5.
“The only thing we really didn’t face was an overtime game in the first series,” Maurice said. “These are all new things to us.
“We’ll move all of those into what will be a more contested series as you move forward — more competition, more confident teams, everybody who gets to that second round is feeling pretty good about where they’re at.”
It’s interesting to note that no Winnipeg NHL team has ever won a second-round playoff game. Jets 1.0 played the Edmonton Oilers twice and were swept both times.
“Just keep the firsts coming here and keep handling them,” Maurice said.