Ice Hockey | Wednesday, March 8, 2023 8:58 AM

Winnipeg Jets vs Minnesota Wild Best Bet: Playoff Positioning in the West

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US Sports Expert

Winnipeg Jets vs Minnesota Wild Best Bet: Wednesday, March 8th

After another 2 – 0 performance with his last NHL article, our resident pucks expert Ej Garr is simply on fire lately. With another plus-money tip today, Ej heads to the Western Conference to preview the game in Canada as the Jets and Wild are only separated by a point in the playoff table.

In this article:

Winnipeg Jets vs Minnesota Wild Preview

March 9, 00:35 (UK time)

Are the jets favoured tonight? Is that some kind of joke or is it a ploy from the line setters to convince you that the Jets are playing good hockey at the moment?

Let’s laugh together because in my opinion the Jets shouldn’t be handed any chalk and they have fallen apart while coming off a loss to the damn San Jose Sharks! I SAID THE SAN JOSE SHARKS!!

With one win from their last seven skates, momentum is everything in sports and the one team that has none to speak of is Winnipeg. This is the third of four meetings between these two teams this campaign, and the Wild secured 4 points from the first two meetings with two easy wins over the Jets. They will meet again just before the regular season ends, and the Jets might be out of the playoff picture by then.

Even though the Jets are 6 points clear of Calgary and Nashville holding on to the 7-seed in the Western Conference, they are giving us no reason to expect things to turn around. This is the time of year that you should be playing your best hockey with every point as pure as gold, and I don’t see how anyone betting with real money could invest in Winnipeg, even at home.

The Jets’ leading scorer Kyle Connor has produced one goal in the last 7 games, which is a big reason why this team has lost 7 of their last 8 games. Connor hasn’t scored a power-play goal since February 16, and Josh Morrisey is a defenseman who is second on this team with 67 points to his credit. Morrisey has only scored 4 goals over his last 11 games, although the pair of goals he tallied against Edmonton on March 4 were vital to picking up that win, 7 – 5.

Pierre-Luc Dubois has a missing person alert in the province because he simply hasn’t shown up to contribute a lick lately!

With the top four players for the Jets all struggling at the same time, it puts that much more pressure on the 3rd and 4th lines to produce and Winnipeg doesn’t have the roster to make up the difference.

Minnesota has won their last 5 games and 8 of their last 9 outings with an overtime loss to Toronto as their only blemish in this current run of results.

Marc-Andre Fleury and Connor Hellbuyck are being shown as the expected starters between the pipes for this match, and that makes me think this will be a 3 – 2 game that the WIld win. We might see some extra hockey tonight, so possibly expect a little overtime action to come in this spot. Both teams need any points they can find and the Jets would almost see 1 point as something to build on.