The Winnipeg Jets and the host Sabres both hope that wins in their most recent outings can help ignite offenses that have been dormant lately when the clubs meet Monday night in Buffalo.
The Jets snapped a four-game skid with a 5-2 victory Saturday in Nashville, buoyed by secondary scoring as Cole Perfetti recorded his first goal in six games and Nino Niederreiter scored twice, his first tallies in eight.
“Right now, we’re just a little fragile group,” Niederreiter said. “Once you’re fragile, you’re just trying to kind of feel and get the momentum going. But… it’s one win. We’ve got to go to the next.”
It seemed to work after Jets head coach Scott Arniel questioned his team’s professionalism following Friday’s 5-1 loss in Carolina, saying he might need to do “a little more screaming” to “find a way to get these guys ready to play.” That message appeared to resonate.
“We’ve got so many guys who have produced offensively for a long time in this league,” defenseman Luke Schenn said. “It’s going to come as long as we continue to do the right things and compete and go to the net.”
Mark Scheifele leads the Jets with 31 points on 13 goals and 18 assists.
It was a big, gutsy 3-2 victory for the Sabres on Saturday in Minnesota, coming less than 24 hours after a 5-0 loss to New Jersey. Buffalo stayed persistent, tied the game in the third period and ultimately won in a shootout, giving the Wild their first loss in eight games.
With goals hard to come by, the Sabres will take them any way they can. Josh Doan’s third-period equalizer took a fortunate bounce — a wrist shot that ricocheted off the glass, then redirected off Wild forward Mats Zuccarello before slipping inside the right post.
“Yeah, I think that’s a whole tale of unfortunate events for them,” Doan said. “But the way that we’ve been playing… you kind of feel a little bit of relief from pucks not going in. They’re starting to go in again.”
While coach Lindy Ruff isn’t dwelling on the fact that the Sabres sit five points out of a playoff spot and are trying to end a 14-year postseason drought, he was pleased to finally see something go right for his beleaguered group.
“By playing the game the right way, we finally caught a break,” Ruff said after the win against the Wild. “Take it one game at a time… we know we have to win… the only way to get back in the race and right into the thick of it is to win.”
Alex Tuch leads a balanced Buffalo attack with 22 points (eight goals, 14 assists), while Tage Thompson is the team’s top goal scorer with a dozen.
On the injury front, Jets defenseman Neal Pionk remains day-to-day with a lower-body injury, and it’s unclear if he’ll return to the lineup Monday. For the Sabres, Josh Norris — who has not yet returned from a seven-week stint on injured reserve with an upper-body injury — continued to sit out Saturday’s game against the Wild. Norris was considered a possibility to play, and his status for Monday appears to be a game-time decision.
–Field Level Media
