Byfuglien, Hutchinson skate to season stardom in Jets 2-1 win against Bruins

It was exactly the kind of game Jets coach Paul Maurice was hoping for.

With his defensive corps decimated by injury, the Jets bench-boss revealed in his pre-game press conference Friday the recipe to beating the Boston Bruins.

The keys, he said, were that his team's compete level needed to be high — a common phrase he’s echoed for the better part of his tenure in Winnipeg — and strong play from his goaltender Michael Hutchinson, an ingredient that’s been there for the better part of the season.

“It is a little bit of the playoff mentality,” he said, knowing quite well the difficulty level of the task at hand.

“If you have a bad period tonight you can’t wait until the next game to get better. We need everybody going. Everybody’s got to be on to help out.”

The result: a 2-1 win over the Bruins that improved the Jets' record this season to an impressive 17-10-6. The victory not only keeps the Jets in the playoff hunt but also moves them up a spot into sixth place in the mighty Western Conference.

Maurice knew what he was asking was a tall order, knowing quite well the difficulties of playing with a lack of stability on the blue-line.

With ZachBogosian, Toby Enstrom, Jacob Trouba and Mark Stuart all out for the foreseeable future, it would have been easy for the Jets to back down, to whither away against a tough Boston team on the mend — both forward David Krejci and defencemanZdenoChara, two key cogs in the Bruins lineup, recently returned from injury — and hungry for wins after a disappointing month with just two wins in eight games heading into Friday.

But instead the Jets battled, scraped and clawed their way to victory, beating a team Maurice has often used during interviews as a template for success in the National Hockey League.

“That’s what gives us success is when we’re aggressive all over the ice,” said Jets forward Blake Wheeler.

“Just because we have some injuries doesn’t mean we have to let our foot off the gas a little bit and that’s just all about being responsible defensively and I think we’re all buying into that and it’s given us success.”

So what is the Jets’ secret? Why, against all the odds, are they able to rise above?

The answer isn’t all that exciting.

“There’s nothing brand new out there,” said Maurice.

“It’s far less about the coaching and far more about what happens in that room before the games. I’m not sure about what happens in there but getting themselves ready and handling the adversity right on the bench and it’s all compete.”

Buff proves big…again

Perhaps the greatest byproduct of the adversity cycle for the Jets has been the play of Dustin Byfuglien. In seven games since the big man was moved from forward back to defence, the Jets are 4-1-2.

“Rarely can you take a forward and have him as your No. 1 defenceman and play like that,” said Maurice of the big man (Byfuglien is six-foot-five, 240 pounds).

“A key piece to us winning that game was the goal but his defensive game has just grown leaps and bounds and his stick is fantastic.”

Against the Bruins, Byfuglien ate up more than 27 minutes of ice time and chipped in an assist on the game-winning goal. The point was his ninth in his last nine games.

“You can tell he’s excited about playing defence,” said Wheeler. “It’s his ability to read plays and he’s almost like a free safety back there; he steps up and picks off a ton of pucks for us, creates a ton of turnovers but the most impressive part for me is just how hard he’s playing defensively.

“He’s a big dude and he gets his stick and his body into guys and they’re not going anywhere. He’s been a huge, maybe even our most important player in the last stretch here with all the injuries we’ve had. He’s stepped up and just been awesome.”

Back on top

Speaking of awesome, Michael Hutchinson continued his fairy tale season, stopping 30 of 31 shots aimed his way.

Facing only four shots in the game’s opening 20 minutes, Hutchinson proved big in the final two periods, stopping a number of shots in close including a few point blank chances by the Bruins power play.

Asked what he felt about the added pressure of a depleted blue-line and the need to be at the top of his game, Hutchinson used the same swift moves he has on the ice to showcase his confidence off it.

“You always, like any player, want more responsibility,” said Hutchinson. “It’s just like playing in the playoffs. The game around you kind of changes and the tempo can get a little bit faster throughout the game and you just have to stay even-keeled and make the saves.”

With the win, Hutchinson is now 7-2-2 on the year and is back atop the league leaders with a 1.73 goals-against-average and a .940 save percentage.

“He’s the reason we win games and we’re going to be saying that for a while,” said Maurice.

Slap shots

It took little time for Jets newcomer Jay Harrison to make an impact. Harrison collected an assist just 51 seconds into his first shift as a member of the Jets.

Harrison was acquired Thursday in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for the Ottawa Senator’s 2015 sixth round draft pick, an asset the Jets picked up in a trade this past summer.

With less than 48 hours to pack, kiss his wife and four daughters, get on a plane and suit up for the game, Harrison admits he was running on fumes.

“It was a quick day but that’s kind of nice, too,” he said. “It didn’t give me really time to think and just force me to get in the game mode quickly and get out there and break myself in a little bit.”

With Stuart out, forward Bryan Little was given the “A” on his chest as one of the team’s alternate captains.

“He is what we try to be as a team,” said Maurice.

“He’s just consistent every day. He works that hard in practice. He competes all through the game. He’s smart. He recovers well for his two line mates but he’s a player that hasn’t changed much in terms of how he comes to the rink every day whether the pucks are going in or not; his game, his effort, his focus is the same. That’s what we want to look like as a team.”