Thomas’ Five Storylines – WPG vs VAN

STASTNY 1000

A special night this evening at Bell MTS Place as Jets forward Paul Stastny celebrates his 1000th career game in the National Hockey League. Paul leads the way when it comes to games played in the Stastny family followed by his dad Peter (977), uncle Anton (650), uncle Marian (322) and his brother Yan (91). 

“It means a lot,” said Stastny of the milestone.

“I still love to do it (play hockey).”

PIONK BACK IN

Neal Pionk returns to the Jets lineup tonight and will hopefully give the power play a shot in the arm. The Jets haven’t scored with the man advantage in their last two games and are 2-for-27 on the power play dating back to April 17th. Pionk leads the Jets defencemen in points and hits.

STAY WITH IT

The Jets had arguably one of their best games at home during their seven-game losing streak at Bell MTS Place and certainly deserved a much better result. They fired 40 shots at Canucks netminder Thatcher Demko, and he stopped all but one of them in a 3-1 loss. Paul Maurice has continued to preach the fact that scoring goals at this time of year isn’t supposed to be easy. It won’t get any easier to score in the postseason, but it looks like Winnipeg is heading in the right direction and something good should happen soon.

HELLEBUYCK STARTS

Connor Hellebuyck didn’t even dress on Monday night as he rests in preparation for the postseason. Hellebuyck has had a lot of success against the Canucks going 10-3-0 with a 1.62 goals against average and .946 save percentage. 

TONINATO MAKES JETS DEBUT

In game 55, Dominic Toninato will make his Jets debut this evening. Toninato will slot in alongside Nate Thompson and Trevor Lewis on the team’s fourth line. Maurice admitted today that he is surprised it took so long for Toninato to get into the lineup because the Jets have not been hampered by injuries for the majority of the 2020-21 campaign.