Division leaders Jets, Knights clash in Western Conference showdown

It will be a battle of Western Conference division leaders on Thursday night when the Central Division-leading Winnipeg Jets continue their three-game western road trip in Las Vegas against the Pacific leader Golden Knights.

Winnipeg (51-20-4, 106 points), which leads the NHL in points, holds a four-point lead over the Dallas Stars, while Vegas (45-21-8, 98 points) is five points ahead of the second-place Los Angeles Kings.

The Golden Knights, who are 27-8-3 at T-Mobile Arena, come in off a rare home loss, 3-2, to Edmonton on Tuesday that snapped a six-game win streak. However, there was some good news for Bruce Cassidy’s squad, as the Knights clinched a playoff spot for the third straight season, and the seventh time in eight years in franchise history, when Calgary lost to Utah, 3-1, earlier Tuesday.

“I think this team to me is a playoff team and should be in the playoffs,” Cassidy said. “We’re going to be happy that we’re in but that’s not our ultimate goal, nor should it be. … We’d rather have (clinched) it with a win.”

Still, the 2023 Stanley Cup champions clinched a playoff berth with eight games remaining, the fastest in team history.

“It’s 74 games of hard work to get there,” Cassidy said. “It didn’t happen overnight. The guys should be proud because it doesn’t happen every year. There’s teams that are close and miss. So it’s not automatic. But our expectations are that we’ll be there and competing for the Cup, and I’d like to think this year is the year that we will do that.”

Winnipeg, which has never made it to a Stanley Cup Final, comes in off 4-1 loss at Los Angeles on Tuesday, completing a three-game sweep by the Kings of the regular-season series. The Jets were outscored 10-3 by Los Angeles in those three games.

Despite the loss, Winnipeg entered Wednesday’s play one point ahead of the Washington Capitals for most points in the NHL. Jets coach Scott Arniel bristled when it was suggested Tuesday’s game was “a measuring-stick game” for his team.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Arniel said. “We’re sitting on top right now. So, I don’t know if there’s a measuring stick. We don’t measure that way. We go about how we play hockey. How we go against each and every opponent. We lost three games. Just at the end of the day, those happen. They’re all tight games, some empty-netters at the end. They’re a good team. It is what it is.”

Winnipeg is 0-1-1 against Vegas this season but both were one-goal losses. The Golden Knights, behind two goals each by Brett Howden and Ivan Barbashev, defeated the Jets, 4-3, on Nov. 29 in Las Vegas and also rallied for a 3-2 overtime victory at Winnipeg on Dec. 12. Victor Olofsson tied that one with a 5-on-3 power-play goal with 1:49 left in the third period, and Barbashev then scored the game-winner 3:47 into OT when he finished off a 2-on-1 break with Shea Theodore.

The Golden Knights have won eight straight regular-season games against Winnipeg, outscoring them 34-18 in the process.

–Field Level Media