The Winnipeg Jets’ season-opening 4-1 win over New York Friday night ended a string of four straight losses to the Rangers, going back to February 2019.
Winnipeg will be out to end an even longer drought in Dallas when they begin their first road trip of the young season on Monday night.
The Jets are zero for their last six visits to American Airlines Center — three regulation losses, followed by three overtime defeats, since their last victory deep in the heart of Texas on Feb. 24, 2018.
So Monday evening represents another opportunity for Winnipeg to “slay a dragon” of sorts and get this very difficult three-game trek off to a positive start.
And I, for one, am looking forward to it.
Associate coach Scott Arniel, who will once again run the Jets’ bench, won’t have last say on line matchups on the road, so there should be multiple occasions when we’ll see two of the potentially best forward lines going head-to-head.
If you didn’t happen to notice, the Dallas trio of Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz and Joe Pavelski have picked up right where they left off last season — combining for four goals and 11 points, along with a +12 ranking — in the Stars’ home and home sweep of Nashville.
The Jets’ trio of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Nikolaj Ehlers had a pretty good night themselves at the expense of the Broadway Blueshirts, racking up three goals and five points.
And the All-American battle between the pipes has all the makings to be just as compelling.
Connor Hellebuyck is coming off a 40-save, first-star performance against New York.
Dallas young gun Jake Oettinger allowed just two goals on 64 shots versus the Predators. Not missing a beat either, following the Herculean effort he turned in against Calgary in that epic first-round series last spring.
Really, about the only downer going into the Jets’ first four-pointer of the schedule is that Rick Bowness won’t be there to face the team he guided for the previous two-and-a-half seasons.
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