Jets hope to carry fight into Predators game (Mar 25, 2018)
WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- You know the intensity is high when the players throwing punches at each other on the ice are on the same team.
Winnipeg captain Blake Wheeler and Ben Chiarot came to blows during practice Saturday morning as the Jets prepared to take on the Nashville Predators on Sunday in a battle of the top two teams in the Central Division. Winnipeg trails Nashville by six points.
Wheeler had taken issue with Chiarot after he and center Mark Scheifele exchanged cross-checks during a power play drill and dropped his gloves to fight the defenseman. After a brief scuffle and the players were separated, coach Paul Maurice sent Wheeler off the ice. The practice ended shortly afterward.
Chiarot brushed the incident off as "boys being boys" in a post-practice scrum.
"Tempers get up. Intensity in practice is always a good thing and that's something we're trying to bring here before the playoffs. I look at it as a good thing," he said.
Wheeler was not made available to the media after practice.
Maurice wasn't too worried. In fact, he said he wouldn't mind a couple more incidents like that each year.
"Our theory in how we practice is really short, as fast as we can, a full-contact sport. In the games, somebody gets an elbow up, somebody gets a piece of someone that happens and occasionally in practice that's going to happen. It's all good," he said.
The Jets are coming off perhaps their most dominant performance of the year, a 3-2 overtime victory over Anaheim where a time of possession clock would have given a much better indication of the time spent in the offensive zone. For example, in five-on-five situations, the Jets outshot the Ducks 26-3.
The Jets are flying high on a four-game winning streak that has propelled them to the franchise's first 100-point season. Indeed, the last time a Jets squad cracked three-figures was in 1977-78, when they were playing in the World Hockey Association and led by the Hot Line of Bobby Hull, Ulf Nilsson and Anders Hedberg. That squad finished with 102 points.
The Jets hope to carry over that intensity from practice into Sunday. The Predators flew into Winnipeg right after losing 4-1 to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night, their second consecutive regulation setback. The Predators lead the season series with the Jets 3-1 and there has been no shortage of offense as the two teams have combined for 33 goals, 18 by the Predators and 15 by the Jets.
The Predators are sure to be fired up as coach Peter Laviolette was ejected late in the third period against the Wild after arguing a boarding call against winger Scott Hartnell.
"We weren't good," the coach said in his brief remarks following the game. "We got worse and they got better. They got going a little bit in the second and third period and we stopped playing."
When asked if he had ever been ejected from a game before, Laviolette replied, "I can't remember."
Jets defenseman Toby Enstrom is unlikely to play against the Predators after leaving Friday's game with a lower-body injury. The good news from sick bay is defenseman Jacob Trouba skated in a non-contact jersey Saturday after suffering a concussion against Dallas last week.
