The starting line up was the Glass, Slater Thorburn line in perhaps a hat tip from Claude Noel for a dirty job well done in the game against Phoenix. Noel has been trying to be more of a 'players coach' with some of his approaches and giving the less flashy GST line the start was a nice reward for the less than glamourous work they do.
With former Manitoba Moose goalie Johan Hedberg starting the Devils it took almost 10 seconds for the crowd to begin serenading him with calls of 'hedberg...hedberg'. When the Jets are rolling the MTS Centre is a bouistrous raucous arena and last night was no different. It didn't take long for the Jets to bring the crowd to it's feet when Dustin Byfuglien took a feed back to the point and wired a shot on net which Evander Kane defelcted in at 1:42 into the game.
After reviewing the goal it was deemed good and the Jets now had their first 'question to answer'. During the pre-game press conference Noel talked about how his team would respond after the first goal was scored and what that response would look like. The answer would come soon enough.
Current Jet killer, Adam Henrique , took a pass from Parise on a Devils rush and blasted one five-hole on Pavelec to tie the game at 1-1 four minutes after the Kane goal. The response was not what Claude Noel wanted but the Jets were no short on effort but they were playing a bigger more physical team. Alex Burmistrov had a solild game and caught Tendenby cycling in the Jets zone when he tapped his stick on the ice and received a drop pass back from Tendenby. It's rare to catch a player like that but Burmistrov deserves kudos for savvy thinking.
The real disppointment of the game came in the second period with the officials raking over with bad calls and no calls. The responsible parties were Ghislain Hebert and Chris Lee. It came to a head, at least in the eyes of the Winnipeg fans, near the end of the second period when Jaffray was called for a very dubious hooking infraction which was then followed by Ladd taking a tripping penalty to give the Devils a two man advantage. Ladd's call was extremely poor as Hedberg got revenge on his former hometown supporters by taking a flop that would have made Luongo blush. It took 39 seconds for the Devils to convert and take a 2-1 lead.
All was not lost when after a turnover in the Devils end Little fed Burmsitrov who was standing alone in front of the Devils net. The young russian ripped a one timer past HEdberg for shorthadned goal to take the game to the second intermission tied.
The third period saw the Jets press early and Byfuglien rang one off the cross bar after a great pass from Welllwood to the point. Both goalies kept their respective teams in the game with solid saves and as the period progressed the crowd became obviously tense.
The game changing play was Mark Stuart taking a puck at the Devils blue line and deciding not to shoot before taking the puck low to the goal line before firing a shot as Kane came into crash the net. After more than a few quality shot opportunities not taken it was a risky move by Stuart which paid off. The puck bounced around like a pinball and ended up in the net and even after a review it was a good goal.
The Jets held on for 5 minutes and Kane iced it with an empty netter from his side of the red line. Noel got his 20 for 60 effort and the win to pull the Jets even at .500 for the season. Coach Claude Noel made the following comments in his press conference.
"Game was really heavy game for us"
"Tough handling size and speed"
"Liked most of game, able to muster up enought energy late in the game"
"Played with energy, guys buckled down"
"Confidence is infectious (Kane) he's a hard guy to handle"
"Players are formulating an identity in what they believe they can be"
Noel followed it Up by saying it's time for a break and the players and coaches need to have some joy in their lives for a night and day 'we all need to be happy right?'
Winning and full game efforts obviously make Noel happy.
Below are post game comments from Kane, Stuart and Little
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