Winnipeg Jets favourites to beat Minnesota Wild - NHL Preview
Two teams battling for a playoff berth in their respective conferences will face each other on Thursday, February 16th, 2012 at the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota as the Winnipeg Jets visit the Minnesota Wild.
Both the Jets and Wild are locked in an exciting battle for the playoff spots but their recent struggles have seriously dampened their chances of reaching the coveted eighth spot.
Winnipeg are closer to eighth as they currently rank tenth in the Eastern Conference just six points behind Toronto Maple Leafs in eighth.
Minnesota on the other hand were eighth for the majority of the month of January but recent results have seen them drop down to 12th in the Western Conference trailing eighth placed Phoenix Coyotes by five points.
Jets (26-26-6, 58 pts)
Winnipeg’s poor form in January continues into February as they struggle to put together a string of positive results to charge up the Eastern Conference.
The Jets have won just three of their seven games this month and are currently on a two game losing streak.
Winnipeg will face Minnesota on the back of a 3-1 defeat at the hands of playoff spot rivals New York Islanders.
The Jets offence continued struggle and their failure to take advantage of power plays has kept them just outside of the playoff spots and coach Claude Noel wants his team to deal with adversity and find a way out of their current skid.
"This is what you call adversity, this is what you deal with. How do you respond to this? This is how you measure what you've got.”
"It's going to be a tough hill to climb."
Winnipeg outshot the Islanders 38-25 but could not find a way past New York goaltender Evgeni Nabokov.
The Jets took a 1-0 lead early in the first period but could only look on as New York bounced back in the final two periods to win the game.
Wild (25-23-8, 58 pts)
Minnesota are facing even bigger troubles than Winnipeg. A five-game losing streak has seen them drop out of the safe spot as their struggles in offence continue to hamper their playoff chances.
The Wild lost 2-1 to Anaheim Ducks last time out after holding onto a slim one goal lead for the first two periods of the game.
Anaheim scored twice in the final period to give Minnesota another straight loss and the defeat will further bring down their already fragile confidence.
Coach Mike Yeo wants his players to buck up and fight to win games.
"We've just got to keep fighting. We're still a good enough team that we should be able to win that game. To be a winner, you don't just show up. You have to put the work in and do things that are hard."
Predictions
Winnipeg are marginally the better team and with Minnesota’s problems will be favourites to win in regulation time.
Goals will be hard to come by though with both offenses struggles and a low scoring game will be on the cards.
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