DENVER — The good news for the Winnipeg Jets is that the damage Brenden Dillon sustained at the end of Friday’s Game 3 is, by all accounts, nowhere near as severe as it appeared to be when he rushed off the ice gushing blood from a deep gash in his hand.
The bad news is that it was severe enough to potentially keep the six-foot-four, 225-pound defenceman from participating in Sunday’s Game 4 at Ball Arena — a game the Jets must win to tie this series with the Colorado Avalanche 2-2.
After Saturday’s practice, partner Neal Pionk referred to Dillon as “the heartbeat” of the Jets, so playing without him to avoid heading back to Winnipeg with their season dangling by a thread certainly wouldn’t be ideal.
Head coach Rick Bowness wouldn’t guarantee the Jets would have to do that — stating Dillon was “day-to-day” roughly 12 hours after he received an unknown amount of stitches to close the wound — but he did offer insight into what they’d be missing if he was unavailable.
“Listen, he’s one of our toughest competitors. Tremendous teammate and he gives you 100 percent every shift out there,” said Bowness. “He’s tough as nails, he battles everybody, he blocks shots. I mean, he does everything you want your veteran D to do and he’s a great leader on the ice and in the room. He brings a lot to the table for us.”
The Jets don’t quite have another defenceman who can come in and do as much.
In 77 regular-season games, Dillon averaged 18:44, scored eight goals, recorded 20 points, played a primary penalty-killing role and threw 221 hits. Replacing that wouldn’t be as simple as just throwing Logan Stanley back into the fire.
But, without any confirmation of what Bowness will do should Dillon not be able to play, that appears like the most likely option.
Colin Miller, who’s been scratched for all three games against the Avalanche, stayed on long after the Jets finished practising Saturday, while Stanley was in the room preparing with the rest of the players expected to play Game 4.
The six-foot-seven, 231-pound lefty might bring similar attributes to Dillon in some departments, but what he lacks in another is a big part of why he was watching Game 3 from the press box.
Through Games 1 and 2, Stanley had a hard time moving the puck out of Winnipeg’s end, and he wasn’t the only one.
But Dillon was one player who didn’t struggle much with that. He hadn’t been credited with a single giveaway in this series despite playing the bulk of his minutes against Colorado’s top-six forwards, he only had 28 all season, and few of the Jets defencemen have been as efficient.
That’s helped feed the lethal Avalanche offence.
If it continues to, the Jets are going to be facing elimination come Tuesday.
There are many other things they need to do in order to avoid that scenario.
“I think staying on top of their D, managing the puck high in the zone and not allowing those easy rush chances against is going to be critical. And just getting back to our style of play,” said Jets captain Adam Lowry. “Discipline is important for us. I think we’ve got a lot of belief in this group with the depth that we have. (Connor Hellebuyck) Helle is a world-class goaltender and I think our back end is really solid.”
But everyone in a Jets uniform has to bring more for the dynamic of this series to change.
It’s been dictated by a galvanized Avalanche group that came into Game 1 needing to prove it could beat a Jets team that manhandled it over three games during the regular season.
Their belief has only grown since it began — even in spite losing that first contest 7-6 — because they’ve been the better team from top to bottom.
“You can talk about it all you want, but you have to go and have to execute at the right time,” said Avalanche coach Jared Bednar after a handful of his players participated in an optional practice on Saturday. “Even through these first three games, it hasn’t been perfect but it’s been pretty good. We’re playing hard. We’ve been competitive. We’re trying to tighten things up on the defensive side while staying dangerous on the other side of it. There’s so many things that go into your game that you work on for 82 games of the regular season to try and perfect that when you go out and play well and get the results — and sometimes even if you don’t play that well and you get the results and but you know you can be better in certain areas — that helps build confidence and belief. I don’t think our team ever really doubted themselves, but I do think that going out and performing and seeing all your teammates perform and give it their best and having success is contagious.
“It should be. That’s what you’re trying to accomplish. You’ve got to see your teammates go through it and have success, or a certain level of success, to believe that you can do it. The more often you do that, the more your confidence is going to grow.”
The Jets have only done it in bits and pieces so far, and their confidence doesn’t appear to be as strong on the ice as they’re suggesting it is in their room.
Even if you give them the benefit of the doubt, it’s impossible to suggest that confidence is on the level with Colorado’s at the moment.
The Jets need to assert themselves now to change that.
That’s a tall task, even if Dillon is able to play Sunday. It’ll be an even more monumental one if he can’t and if Dylan Samberg moves into his spot next to Pionk while Stanley jumps back in next to Nate Schmidt.
But that doesn’t mean the Jets don’t have it within them. They were a defensive powerhouse and offensive wagon during the regular season, and they have arguably the best goaltender in the world in Hellebuyck.
He has to be much better than he has been in allowing 15 goals against through the first three games, and there’s plenty of reason to believe he can be.
There’s reason to believe the Jets can be, as well, no matter how their defence is put together for Game 4.
“I think we just have a lot of trust in this group and the depth we have, guys stepping up in different moments,” said Lowry. “We’re just going to look to bounce back. Kind of what Colorado did — we were able to get the upper hand in Game 1, they played really well in Game 2 and got the split. That’s our job now, to take care of business tomorrow.”
