The Jets are going to SHOCK everyone...

On October 29th in Tampa, the game is tied 1-1 after the first period. Then the Lightning score four goals in the second period, and the Jets can only get three of them back in the third, and the final is 6-4. Three days later, they lose 7-0 in Carolina, their ninth loss in a row. Now the Jets get Tampa at home on a two-game win streak, and I think they can take this one. Three things have to go right for them to beat this tough Tampa team tonight and one of them is scoring the first goal. The Jets cannot go out there tonight and chase this game. This is something we've seen from them all season and when they do this, they've been proven to have bad results. Look at how their last five games started. They trailed after the first period in three of them, Florida, Carolina, and Montreal. The one time they led after one was Thursday against Vancouver, 3-1, and they won 6-2. If you want the cleanest proof that leading after the first period is the way to success, that's it. Opening faceoff, first shift. First goal, that's the way I think about this game. You want to go out there, win the opening draw, get the momentum early on your side, have a good first shift from this top line that's been great all season, and then maybe the second line could come out against a tough or maybe a tired first unit after the opening draw. Try to get this goal. I really like the second unit going into tonight's game. Before we go any further, if you like Winnipeg Jets breakdowns just like this one, go down below, hit that subscribe button. It's completely free to do so. And Tampa's not a team you want to chase. They are 10-3-2, third in the Atlantic Division. The Jets are 6-8-3, 7 in the Central, and the Wild are 12 points ahead at the top. Every point matters right now for the Winnipeg Jets, and that starts with the opening 10 minutes at home. On October 29th, the Lightning scored four goals in one period. The Jets really need to get the crowd into it early, whether it's a big hit, a fight, something to get this building rocking, and it'll make the Tampa Bay Lightning's night a lot harder. The second key is playing a full 60. I feel like when we've seen this team play a full 60, i.e. the Vancouver game, they go out and dominate, and they have the talent to do this, so play a full 60 again tonight. A week ago Sunday, they lose 7-0 in Carolina, outshot 32-26. Tuesday in Montreal, they trail 3-0 after two periods, then 4-0 early in the third. They score four in the third to tie it, and Sandberg wins it in overtime 5-4. The Jets outshot Montreal 47-22 in that game, so it was not luck. That snapped the nine-game losing streak for this team, which sent them on this momentous run after beating the Vancouver Canucks. Now they're facing a tough team tonight, so you need to carry that momentum forward into tonight's game and just try to beat a tough team and give yourself some hope. Then Thursday, it was 6-2 over Vancouver, which was the first back-to-back win since early October, which is great for this team. The Jets had Tampa 1-1 after the first on October 29th. They lost the game in 20 minutes in the second. And that's why I keep saying play a full 60 minutes. Because if you give even one period to this Tampa Bay Lightning team, they can punish you for it. And we've seen it with giving up four goals in one period against them previously. Skinner has an 8.85 save percentage this season, so he does not need to be perfect. He needs help in front of him. Thursday, he made 24 saves on 26 shots, and that is the level the Jets need to get. In the Montreal game, the Jets had 47 shots. That's the type of pressure that will break a team, and you need to be putting up those kind of shot volumes a lot. I mean, obviously, 47 is very high, but if we even hit 35 shots tonight, I'd be very happy with that. When the Jets keep their structure, the goals follow, and we've seen that in the Montreal and Vancouver game for sure. If you do all those things for a full 60 minutes, you can beat anybody in this league, and I very much believe that for the Winnipeg Jets. The third key of this game is the defense, and it's definitely the one that worries me the most. The Jets allow 7.9 high-danger shots a game, one of the five most in the NHL. But when those shots come, the goalies stop them at a rate of .799. Right now, the league rate is .798, so you're just above league average. So it's not a problem with the goalie. It's a problem with how many chances that Tampa is going to get in this game. And if you give a team like Tampa eight high-danger situations to score, they're going to convert on some of them, and it's not going to be great for us. So we need to stop turning over the puck. Play a cleaner game, have shorter passes, and just not allow them to get into those high-danger areas and put some pucks past, whether it's, obviously, if it's going to be Stu or if it's going to be Stevenson or Dawes. We're not quite sure who the starter is yet, but got to give those guys an easy night and just shut down Tampa. It also doesn't help that the blue line is a bit banged up right now. Josh Morrissey's on injured reserve with a wrist injury, and Hayden Fleury left Thursday's game in the third period with a shot to the hand. The coach is kind of saying it's a game-time decision on Hayden Fleury, so check the lineup before puck drop to see if he makes it in. That puts a lot on Sandberg and Pionk as the top pair tonight, and Pionk and Ferraro both score Thursday. In goal is expected to be Stuart Skinner, with Nico Dawes backing him up. Connor Halbach is a devil now. He was traded on October 23rd, and he's 4-0 in New Jersey. Skinner's .885 and Dawes' .886 are almost the same number, so whoever starts, the Jets need the defense to give them room to breathe. Thursday at work, 26 shots against and 6 goals for. Do that again and keep the shots down and the Jets are going to be in great shape for a path to victory tonight. And the guy I'm watching tonight is the guy I'm watching every night, Kyle Connor. He's been red hot lately. He leads the Jets with 13 goals and 19 points this season. Six of those goals are on the power play, the most on the team. Two came Tuesday in Montreal, 27 seconds apart to tie the game. And Perfetti and Scheifele on his line at 5-on-5, the Jets have outscored teams 10-6 over 163 minutes. He has 13 goals and about 9 expected from his shots, so he is scoring about 4 more than what he usually produces. Scheifele has 16 points and Perfetti has 12, so that is the three best point producers on the team after Connor. Now, Connor does have a quiet history against Tampa. In six meetings, he has scored .5 goals a game and .8 goals against this season. So tonight is a chance to change that for Kyle Connor. The other thing I'm watching is this second line. I like what I'm seeing out of it lately. Thursday, Dawson Mercer scored his first goal as a Jet, and Brayden Jaeger came up from the Moose the same day. Mercer, Perfetti, and Jaeger started to build a lot of chemistry in that game, and that's one thing I'm very excited about heading into tonight, because I thought this second line was the best second line we've seen all year. We've talked about here on the channel how we need scoring through our bottom nine, and we've seen that here in the last game against Vancouver, and I really do think that we have something special with this line. If that line scores tonight, Tampa cannot put their best defenders on Connor all night. And on the other side, everything runs through Nikita Kucherov, the guy who just requested a trade out of Tampa. He has 20 points this season, the most on Tampa Bay. Last season, he put up 130 points in 76 games and won the Hart Trophy. That is who the Jets are facing tonight, and he's starting another strong campaign this season. And, you know, Nikita Kucherov's a guy that you can't really slow down. He's a great passer. He can shoot the puck as well. This is one of the best players in the league, and we need to figure out a way to shut him down tonight. Behind him on Tampa is Brandon Hagel with 17 points, so the Lightning do not rely on one line. The depth is how the Lightning scored six on the Jets' last time out. And in his career against the Jets, he has 30 points in 24 games, 14 goals, and 16 assists. That is more than a point per game against this team. He plays on Tampa's first power play unit with Point, Gensel, Adastas, and Carlson. On October 29th, the Lightning's Brayden Point scored, and Pontus Holmberg had four points. So it's not only Kucherov that can beat you, it's their depth as well. The best way to shut this offense down is to stay out of the penalty box, be disciplined tonight, and don't give this Tampa Bay power play very many options, because when they get up on that man advantage, they can really punish you for it. The Jets have the Tampa goalie to deal with too, Vasilevskiy, who is 6'8 and 1 against Winnipeg in his career with an 8.95 save percentage. That is very beatable, and the Jets have done it before. Last season, these two teams split. Tampa 4-1 in January and Winnipeg 4-1 in March. So my pick is the Jets tonight. I think we can go out there and beat this Tampa team and shock a lot of people. We got to go out there. We got to score the first goal. We got to play a full 60 minutes. And we've been proven that we can do this. We've seen it in the last game against Vancouver. So take what you learned from that game and carry it into a tough game against Tampa tonight. Connor and the second line have to carry this as well. Connor has to go out there, snap his quiet streak against Tampa, get a goal up on the board tonight, and then this second line of Jaeger, Mercer, and Perfetti keep rolling, and hopefully we can see Mercer get another goal tonight because he got his first as a Jet last game. And, of course, stay out of the box against Kucherov. Like I said, this is a guy who can punish you up on the man advantage. He can walk in, just take a shot. He can find a teammate, wide open backdoor. So shut the power play down tonight. Be very disciplined. We have home ice advantage, we are two wins in a row, and we definitely have something to prove after October 29th's loss against Tampa, so the boys are going to be looking for revenge tonight, hopefully we can go out and get it. And one more thing to watch for tonight is simple, it's the first 10 minutes. If the Jets come out the way they did Thursday, up 3-1 after the first, this is a very different night than October 29th. If they fall behind early at home, it's going to be a long night against a team that is 10-3-2. I really trust this group right now. After coming back from down 4-0 with 2:40 to go against Montreal, I got a lot of faith in this team to go out and win a lot of games. And I think they're going to be fired up tonight to go out there, get their revenge on Tampa as they embarrassed them while they were on their nine-game losing streak. So I think the boys are going to be so fired up to go out there, get this win back, and I really do think it's going to lead to them. Getting the first goal, and when they get the first goal, that will just lead to them playing a full 60 and just dominating this team. So I got the Jets tonight. I want to know who you guys got.