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Quenched

The Winnipeg Jets came home, and put out some Flames.

By Melissa Martin

October 17^th, 2015

a warm welcome

The Jets came home on Friday night, and skated out into a world of sound and light.

By now, the annual home-opener introductions are familiar. Still, it was a pretty sight. In the stands, blue-lit sticks waved in the darkness. On the ice, the players slid out by name and number, each taking their spot in the circle next to another.

The crowd roared, maybe lifted somewhat by the fact that, this year, the Jets were already 3-1. Which player drew the loudest introductory cheers? It’s hard to say for certain. The rookies Nik (Ehlers) and Nic (Petan) got their share of love, for sure. But to our ear, it sounded as if defenceman Dustin Byfuglien earned the most thunderous applause.

Good call by the crowd, as it would turn out. More on that later.

Photo: Trevor Hagan, Winnipeg Free Press

first-degree burn

If the Flames hungered to spoil the Jets’ first home cookin’ of the year (how d’ya like that metaphor, huh?) then they wasted little time souring the taste. Three minutes, 38 seconds was all they needed to open the scoring. It was a nice enough strike: forward Mikael Backlund, in the paint, whipped an incoming puck up and over Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec.

The goal also paved the way for one regretful sight, that of all-around talented former Jets forward Michael Frolik going in for the goal celebration with his new team. He picked up the second assist on the goal, while Sam Bennett was noted as the first-string helper.

Well, Jets fans wouldn’t have to see it happen again on Friday night.

HOOK OR BY CROOK

No, no, that was definitely a hook.

The Jets saw some chances in a mostly quiet first, including this: a buttery-smooth pass from Ehlers to centre Mark Scheifele, who was poised like a vulture at the side of the Flames’ net. Scheifele couldn’t tip it in, but part of that was because he was getting hooked by Calgary forward Mark Giordano.

Scheifele proceeded to flip directly over Flames goalie Karri Ramo. The whistle blew. Giordano sat out two minutes for hooking, but the Jets proceeded to not make them pay. The teams went to their locker rooms at the first break with the Jets down 1-0, and Calgary having put up three more shots on net.

”Tonight’s first wasn’t as bad as a couple of games on the road trip, but it just wasn’t the energy we wanted to come out with,” Jets centre Bryan Little said, after the game. “But we hung in there and stuck with it.”

FIGHTING BACK

In the second period, the Jets came back out swinging.

While Pavelec mostly watched — the Flames put just four shots in net in that frame, which is not entirely intimidating — the home team pushed for the equalizer. Just over eight minutes into the frame, they found it, though almost by accident: Blake Wheeler threw the puck towards the net. It ricocheted off Little’s skate, and slid in.

But, really, there aren’t any artistic judges in hockey, so that tying point? The Jets took it and ran, and never looked back. “Once we tied that game in the second period, we found a new gear,” Little said, later. “We controlled the play a lot more.”

SAY CHEESE

While Calgary defenceman Kris Russell and goalie Ramo hit the ice to block a shot, Andrew Ladd, Flames defenceman Dennis Wideman and Wheeler apparently decided to pose for a nice group photo. Or maybe they were still just playing hockey.

FLYING HIGH

Alexander Burmistrov took some time in the game to give Calgary’s Deryk Engelland a levitation lesson. You’d think it would be a bigger deal that the Jets forward can actually float, but hey, he can do a lot of neat things.

Photo: Ruth Bonneville, Winnipeg Free Press

THE GLORY

The teams sat at loggerheads with under two minutes left to play. Then Dustin Byfuglien happened.

The winner? It was, in some ways, a Big Buff classic. With the pressure on, the defenceman swiped the puck away near the Jets’ end of the rink, blazed it down the ice, and made a slick move to get a step on Wideman. For a fraction of a second, it looked as if Byfuglien looked up for the pass, thought better about it, then launched himself and the puck closer to the Flames’ net.

“It’s so unusual for a man that big to be able to do some of the things he can do at high rates of speed,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said, after it was all over.

He shot. From the stands, it was hard to imagine how the puck somehow went past Karri Ramo and in, but it did. The goal horn blared, the building exploded. Byfgulien threw his arms in the air, took a short victory lap around the boards. Every time they showed Byfuglien on the scoreboard, they roared again, and again.

The Flames challenged the goal as offside. The referees sent it for review, while Dancing Gabe flashed on the big screen, waving his arms in time with the waiting music on the speakers.

The goal stood, so the place blew up all over again. That was game. A minute later, Blake Wheeler sent one sailing into an empty net, and that’s how it ended.

Byfuglien didn’t say much, because he rarely says much to the circling reporters and cameras. To know what he thinks, you have to read a different kind of language, the one written into those arms and that grin. “It was good,” he said, in the locker room after. “It was um, something that… just another game.”

Footnotes

Cover photo: John Woods, Canadian Press.

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FootNotes

Cover photo: John Woods, Canadian Press.

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