The feel-good game they played to produce a winning result ran parallel with the paramount two points the Winnipeg Jets picked up on Friday night.
Scoring has come at a premium for the Jets over a horrendous stretch that has them holding onto a playoff spot by the skin of their teeth at the moment.
So stuffing six past an opposing goalie, the total they had scored in their previous five games combined, injected equal parts of confidence and relief during Friday’s 6-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings at Canada Life Centre.
“At this time of the year, the wins mean more than anything,” Mason Appleton said after the Jets were back on the practice ice Saturday. “We loved our game for basically all 60 minutes. We can win with that game here.”
The last sentence is a fitting segue because it’s the type of game that the Jets need to replicate as soon as Sunday against a potent and playoff-confirmed New Jersey Devils squad.
“We can’t be satisfied with what happened (on Friday),” Nino Niederreiter said. “We did a lot of great things but we know we have to back up what we did (Friday) and (Sunday) is going to be a different animal with New Jersey. They’re a great team and they play (Saturday) against Chicago. We’re all aware of (that). We gotta make sure we come out on top and do whatever it takes.”
Ah, the dreaded C-word… consistency — something Winnipeg has been so inconsistent at locating.
Back-to-back wins in early March in Florida should have been a stepping-off point for the team to cement their playoff status. Instead, they went on to lose three of their next four and then dropped two of three on their most recent road trip to keep the wild-card door ajar in the West.
Calgary has nestled itself two points back after defeating the Vancouver Canucks in overtime on Friday, and Nashville just won’t die, moving three points back with a game still in hand after a convincing 6-1 victory Saturday afternoon against St. Louis.
The Jets play both teams over their final six regular-season games.
“We have it in our own hands and we got to do whatever it takes to be successful and put ourselves in the best position as possible,” Niederreiter said.
The Jets need a repeat of Friday’s pedal-to-the-metal pace, with New Jersey, like Detroit before them, arriving in Winnipeg for the second half of a back-to-back.
Winnipeg siphoned any remaining fuel from Detroits’ tank with a three-goal first period and plunged the dagger in when they led 5-0 after 40 minutes.
“All things we’ve been working on, it showed in those goals,” Bowness said Saturday, pointing specifically, at one point during his availability, to Mark Scheifele’s career-high 39th tally that ended the latter’s nine-game drought.
“It bounced around to him, but we’ve been around that net a lot, but the puck just didn’t come to us at the right time. (Friday) was perfect. You need those bounces in the game to get your offence on track, you really do, and we got them.”
Bowness’s latest shuffle of the deck paid off as he pushed Scheifele out to right-wing, opposite Kyle Connor — who scored his second goal in 15 games Friday — with Pierre-Luc Dubois holding down centre duties.
That line held during Saturday’s practice, as did the second trio of Nikolaj Ehlers, Vladislav Namestnikov and Blake Wheeler, who combined for six points Friday. The three showed promise with Dubois out of the lineup last month and seemed to rekindle that chemistry immediately in Friday’s win.
Meanwhile, Mason Appleton and Adam Lowry welcomed Niederreiter to the mix and the line was effective at both ends of the ice.
“They’re very predictable,” Niederreiter said of his fellow linemates. “They know exactly what they do and what their tendency is. When Ehlers went down or when I’m with them right now, it’s fun playing with them because you know exactly what you get.”
It helped Niederreiter to his first goal in eight games.
“I tried to get a puck across to him and I think it got tipped, hit a couple of things, and he still managed to power through that and then show his good touch to finish that five-hole,” Appleton said. “Nino’s a big, strong, powerful guy and he’s really good around the net and I think his goal’s the perfect example of that.
“He’s going to be a really good fit for our line and I think we can do a lot of damage here.”
Now, it’s just a matter of doing it again.
Perfetti likely sidelined through first round
Cole Perfetti is no longer expected to make a first-round return should the Jets book a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“He’s done for a while yet,” Bowness said. “That’s the only thing that’s changed, he’s physically here.”
There was hope that the 21-year-old could return sometime in the first round when it was announced he’d miss at least eight weeks with an undisclosed upper-body injury on Feb. 24.
“It’s hard to pinpoint to give an exact time,” Bowness said. “It’s probably later than that.”
Meanwhile, Josh Morrissey, who missed Friday’s tilt with an illness, is expected to play Sunday.
sbilleck@postmedia.com
Twitter: @scottbilleck
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