Predators won the season series 3-1-1.

CBC, SN 360 at 7:00 p.m.

Tagline: "Catfish vs Goldeye"

Storyline: The series everyone in the media wanted, and the one many prognosticators say will determine the Stanley Cup finalist, if not the champion.

Quote: “If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best" - Donald Cerrone, American boxer (paraphrased by Ric Flair: "If you want to be the man, you gotta beat the man")

Quote #2: "OK, hear me out: We cancel the playoffs and just let the Jets and Predators play a two-month best-of-31 series for the Cup." - Sean McIndoe on twitter after Winnipeg beat Nashville 5-4 at home March 25,

Season review:

Game 1: Nashville wins 5-3 at home Nov. 20, their 7th win in 8 games, and climb to 12-6-2, within one point of 12-5-3 Winnipeg. Rinne and Hellebuyck are the goalies. 3 goals by Nashville in the 2nd period decided the game, Jets trailed 5-1 before two late cosmetic goals made it appear closer.

Game 2: Winnipeg wins 6-4 on the road on December 19, maybe their biggest win of the year, the one  that gives hope that this team can go all the way. After giving up 2 goals in the final minute of the first to trail 2-1, the Jets roared back with 2 Nic Ehlers goals to lead 4-3 after 2. Nashville tied it up early in the 3rd before Branden Tanev won it with 86 seconds left. Hellebuyck and Rinne were the goalies, Jets climbed to 20-10-5 and moved to within a point of both Nashville and St. Louis for top spot in the Central, while stopping the Preds 8 game undefeated streak.

Game 3: Nashville wins 6-5 in Winnipeg on February 27 in the game that would ultimately decide the President's Trophy.  A scoreless first period gave way to old time 1980's hockey in the second, as the teams poured in 6 goals in the last half of the period. Back and forth play had the Jets up 4-3 going into the final stanza, and it looked promising when trade deadline pick-up Paul Stastny scored with 10 minutes left. But the joy was short-lived as Nashville tied it up within the next 4 minutes, before Nashville's own deadline acquisition Ryan Hartman broke their hearts with a last minute goal. Hellebuyck and Rinne again between the pipes, Roman Josi had 5 assists. It was the only time all year the Jets would lose a game in regulation when leading after 2. Predators won their 5th straight (en route to a 10 game winning streak) and moved to 39-14-9 while Winnipeg fell to 37-17-9.

Game 4: Nashville wins 3-1 at home on March 13 as a tired Jets squad wrapped up a 6 game road trip.  3 goals in the first 9 minutes against Michael Hutchinson (2 of them shorthanded) settled the game early, but Hellebuyck shut out the Preds the rest of the way in relief. Only Kyle Connor could beat Rinne on this night. Nashville jumped to 45-14-10 and into a tie for the league lead, while Winnipeg fell to 41-19-10. Little did we know then that the Jets would only lose once more to close out the regular season.

Game 5: Winnipeg wins 5-4 in a shootout to clinch a playoff spot on March 25. Down 2-0 after 1 (including a last second goal against), Winnipeg roared back in the second to tie it at 3 before exiting the second down by a goal. It was Winnipeg's turn to turn a 3rd period deficit into a win when Blake Wheeler tied it one minute in. Mark Scheifele scored the only goal in the shootout against Juuse Saros while Hellebuyck stopped all 3 of his shootout foes. Jets climbed to 46-19-10 with win 5 of what would be a 6 for 6 home stand, while Nashville fell to 48-16-10.

Fun fact: With 114 points, Winnipeg set an NHL record for most points in a season by a team that did not lead their division (or their conference, for that matter) in points. In fact, only 2 teams in NHL history have had more points in a regular season and not had home advantage in a series - Philadelphia had 118 when they went up against 127 point juggernaut Montreal in the 1976 Stanley Cup finals, and 115 point Montreal lost to 117 point Calgary in the 1989 Cup finals . The 231 combined points for these teams is the 6th highest total all-time for playoff opponents (behind the 2 aforementioned pairings, Montreal (129)-Boston (113) in the '78 Final,  Montreal (132) - NYI (106) in the '77 semi-final, and that same Montreal team against Boston (106) in the '77 Cup Final. 

Fun fact #2: Since the original expansion in 1967-68, the #1 and #2 regular season teams have met a total of 14 times, but only 7 since the league went to a full 4 round playoff series in 1980. The #1 team has won 10 of 14, but the #2 team has won the last 2. No meeting had ever occurred earlier than the Conference Finals before last year, but the Jets-Preds meeting is the second straight year the #1 and #2 teams have met in Round 2, after Pittsburgh and Washington did it for the first time ever just last season:

Mtl (1) 4-2 over Bos (2), 1969 semi-finals 

Bos(2) 4-0 over Chi (1), 1970 semi-finals

Bos (1) 4-2 over NYR (2), 1972 Finals

Phi (2) 4-2 over Bos (1), 1974 Finals

Phi (1) 4-2 over Buf (2), 1975 Finals

Mtl (1) 4-0 over Phi (2), 1976 Finals

Mtl (1) 4-2 over Bos (2), 1978 Finals

Edm (1) 4-1 over NYI (2), 1984 Finals

Edm (1) 4-1 over Phi (2), 1985 Finals

Edm (1) 4-3 over Phi (2), 1987 Finals

Cal (1) 4-2 over Mtl (2), 1989 Finals

NYR (1) 4-3 over NJ (2), 1994 Conf. Finals (In double OT!)

Col (2) 4-2 over Det (1), 1996 Conf. Finals

Pit (2) 4-3 over Was (1), 2017 Division Finals

 

 

Edited April 25, 20187 yr by TrueBlue4ever

man I am caught between the raps and the jets......I wonder if people will beg more minor league basketball back in Canada even, but I guess we'll have to make due with the bisons

 

Enstrom is in the box. to me this is a stupid excuse for a penalty

okay that does it we NEED to keep stastny. Jets lead 2-0 in the second

 

and judging by the swearing coach, the jets are in the box again

Scheif makes it 3-0

 

are you sure we are playing against the team that won 3 games over the 2 we beat them? and the 1st in the conference?

Edited April 28, 20187 yr by iHeart

Man, on that Tanev goal -- Little was playing like Andrew Harris, he broke three tackles there.  Unbelieveable.

3rd period, Rinne is no longer in net

and there goes our shut out

Empty net #FinishEm and that's what Scheif did 4-1 Winnipeg. Did anyone have any doubt that they'd beat the preds tonight?

Edited April 28, 20187 yr by iHeart

Hail Bucky!  #wintersoldier

Will the game be replayed later?  I fell asleep and missed it =\       Were the Jets outplayed (based on the lopsided shots?) 

25 minutes ago, Brandon said:

Will the game be replayed later?  I fell asleep and missed it =\       Were the Jets outplayed (based on the lopsided shots?) 

Not as much as the shots indicated. But yeah they were. Nashville had about 25 shots with no traffic from the blue line. Jets can be better. Im not sure Nashville can be

 

Did Nash take lots of shots? Yup.

Scoring chances tho.. More important.. 

Jets 16 of 19 

Preds 28 of 48

Jets didnt take lots of shots... Preds did.. Jets took a better percentage of high quality shots tho. 

Edited April 28, 20187 yr by Goalie
48 not 40

Lots of perimeter shots by the Predators, crashing the net looking for rebounds that we not there, Jets capitalized on their chances, not a great game by the jets but who cares ask any coach do you want your team to have a great game or a win? As O dog said on TSN after the game Scheifele is an elite superstar and if he was playing in a big market (Toronto) the whole world would know it.

11 hours ago, iHeart said:

man I am caught between the raps and the jets......I wonder if people will beg more minor league basketball back in Canada even, but I guess we'll have to make due with the bisons

 

Raps = #WeTheNorth

Jets = #WeTheTrueNorth

only caught the 3rd period cuz of work but seemed like nashville was the bigger faster team.  But as Don Cherry alluded to after the game was Winnipeg was the smarter team and played the game perfectly against them constantly flipping the puck up against the glass avoiding any kind of smash mouth type game

1 hour ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

only caught the 3rd period cuz of work but seemed like nashville was the bigger faster team.  But as Don Cherry alluded to after the game was Winnipeg was the smarter team and played the game perfectly against them constantly flipping the puck up against the glass avoiding any kind of smash mouth type game

They opened it up in the 3rd cuz it was 3 0. Only had 11 or 12 shots in the 3rd tho. 

Nashville's game plan, fire pucks crash net get rebounds, 2 out of those 3 happened last night so they lost the game, Jets game plan let them take low percentage shot smark and box out your man clear puck and capitalize on chances, all of that happened and the Jets won.

I think that  up to this point, puck is bouncing the Jet's way. 

Couldn't tell you one specific play, but the Wild, and Nashville, had some pretty good chances, that didn't quite make it into the goal.

This makes up for some poor puck luck in prior seasons.

Don't get some of the criticism I read in other forums of some of the players, specially Wheeler.

Ask Scheifele how Wheeler is doing.

Also, I don't get the Hellebuck (sp) stole the game. The Jets scored four goals. On the supposed best defence in the league. 

 

Edited April 28, 20187 yr by Mark F

2 minutes ago, Mark F said:

I think that  up to this point, puck is bouncing the Jet's way. 

Couldn't tell you one specific play, but the Wild, and Nashville, had some pretty good chances, that didn't quite make it into the goal.

Jets show so much consistency when it comes to preparation for these big games.   So far I feel it’s been pretty easy to see right away when they’re ‘on’, like their speed and how quickly they contest every puck.  The one loss in round one they were slow and fighting the puck all night, and that was after being cooped up in an airplane all day less than 24 hours before.

The goal post sure helped hold the lead but like Wheeler said, it happened to both teams last night.  Jets executed a sound game plan to near perfection and created their own puck luck.

1 hour ago, bustamente said:

Nashville's game plan, fire pucks crash net get rebounds, 2 out of those 3 happened last night so they lost the game, Jets game plan let them take low percentage shot smark and box out your man clear puck and capitalize on chances, all of that happened and the Jets won.

Man i dont think we saw any game plans shown on screen this season

Stastny makes PK Subban looks useless on Stastny's goal. Stastny beats him twice for the puck, and scores. 

 

Edited April 28, 20187 yr by Mark F

18 hours ago, Brandon said:

Will the game be replayed later?  I fell asleep and missed it =\       Were the Jets outplayed (based on the lopsided shots?) 

You fell asleep? Do you have a heartbeat?

 

3 hours ago, Mark F said:

Stastny makes PK Subban looks useless on Stastny's goal. Stastny beats him twice for the puck, and scores. 

 

I thought Buff manhandling him behind the net was a joy to watch as well.

Don’t mind a little back and forth but I’d rather this stay on hockey and not individual posters.

Thanks all.