The Winnipeg Jets will look to keep their Western Conference wild-card hopes alive when they travel to Chicago to face the Blackhawks on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
The Jets (31-30-12, 74 points), in the midst of a four-game road trip, enter Monday\u2019s action three points back of the Nashville Predators for the final wild-card spot. Winners of three of the last four, Winnipeg doubled up the host Colorado Avalanche 4-2 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Gabriel Vilardi scored a goal and added an assist, while Cole Koepke, Cole Perfetti and Kyle Connor also tallied for the Jets, who are 3-2-2 in their past seven.<\/p>\n
Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves for Winnipeg, which improved to 13-16-6 on the road this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked at the scoreboard, and we got some help around the league. That\u2019s what we need, but you\u2019ve got to win to gain ground,\u201d Jets coach Scott Arniel said of Saturday\u2019s win. \u201cWe did that. Now all of our focus zeroes in on Chicago. It can\u2019t be one of those ones where you have a great game here, and then you take a big step back.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his two-point performance, Vilardi set new career highs in goals (28) and points (62).<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game\u2019s huge,\u201d Vilardi said. \u201cWe need to win every game just to keep afloat right now, to try and stay tied and then make up ground. \u2026 This is a huge win, coming in to play the best team in the NHL right now and winning. I\u2019m not undermining that. It\u2019s a good win for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be sitting here a month from now, not playing hockey. That would suck. So that\u2019s our thoughts and my thoughts right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday is the fourth and final meeting between the Central Division rivals. Winnipeg has taken two of three contests thus far, doubling up the Blackhawks 6-3 on Oct. 30 and edging them 3-2 in overtime on March 3.<\/p>\n
Chicago blanked Winnipeg 2-0 on Jan. 19.<\/p>\n
The Blackhawks (27-34-13, 67 points) are stuck in a three-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
Frank Nazar scored twice, his first career multi-goal game, and Ilya Mikheyev also tallied in Chicago\u2019s 5-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you lose, you can learn from it,\u201d Nazar said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go back, do some video, figure out how to be better and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anton Frondell added two assists and Spencer Knight made 35 saves for Chicago, which is 3-5-2 in its last 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t perfect, obviously, but we played hard,\u201d Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill said. \u201cSo, from an attitude and an approach, I thought it was much better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connor Bedard paces the Blackhawks with 30 goals, 38 assists and 68 points through 61 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur bread and butter is we want to get it low and play a very simple game and then let our offense take over,\u201d said Ryan Donato, who had an assist against the Devils.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to figure out a way to continue to grow and mature.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Winnipeg Jets will look to keep their Western Conference wild-card hopes alive when they travel to Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5121],"tags":[5,78,4,77,18,5288],"class_list":{"0":"post-532954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg-jets","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-jets","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-winnipeg","12":"tag-winnipeg-jets","13":"tag-winnipegjets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116324377848887990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}