Jets still searching for scoring depth ahead of showdown in Edmonton

EDMONTON — When Winnipeg fourth-liners Tanner Pearson and Cole Koepke each scored in a 4-1 win over Buffalo Friday, the hockey world shrugged. Big deal, right?

Well, actually….

“It’s huge for us,” Koepke told Winnipeg reporters after the game. “We haven’t had a game like that for us this year. It was great for us as a line, and the team was rolling as well, so it’s even better when it comes in a win.”

As the weary Winnipeg Jets arrive in Edmonton for a Hockey Night in Canada matchup at Rogers Place tonight — hanging on for dear life in the Central Division while cornerstone goalie Connor Hellebuyck recovers from knee surgery — they’ll be hoping that a couple of fourth-line goals against the Sabres becomes contagious.

“When your fourth line can do that and score you two goals, that’s a big game changer,” said head coach Scott Arniel. “It just takes a little bit of heat off everyone.”

So far this season, only the Colorado Avalanche’s top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas and Artturi Lehkonen has been more productive than Winnipeg’s No. 1 unit of Mark Scheifele between Kyle Connor and Gabe Vilardi.

But the rest of the Jets? The major reason Winnipeg has lost six of its past eight games is that nobody else has been chipping in any offence.

Arniel lies awake at night, wondering if he should split up one of the best lines in the NHL in order to spark some offence from the rest of his lines.

“Believe me, I’ve debated this for a long time,” he said on Friday morning. “We’ve been talking about it. I’ve got some ideas. But at the end of the day, we are getting zero goals and it’s hard when that line can score like that. You hope they can go out and do what they do and outscore the opposition.

“Do we spread the wealth? That’s something we’ve honestly been talking about here in the last couple of days. We want to get through this stretch here.”

The Jets picked up three points on a five-game roadie, came home for last night’s win over Buffalo, and then flew to Edmonton to complete the back-to-back. Lots of games, lots of losses — it has Arniel coaching as fast as he can.

Arniel healthy-scratched Gustav Nyquist for the first time in Nyquist’s career — not once, but twice this week. Those things happen when a team drops 10 of its past 15.

Meanwhile, ‘The Big Experiment’ this season — the return of Jonathan Toews — has thus far been inconsequential.

Toews has one assist in his last 11 games, and drags pedestrian totals of 3-6-9 and a team-worst minus-12 in 27 games into tonight’s match against Edmonton.

“The big thing to JT is it’s all new to him right now. It’s been a couple years, and he’s the first to admit the league is even faster than when he left it,” Arniel said this week. “I know offensively the numbers aren’t there. For him, this isn’t a 10-game, 20-game, 30-game thing. This is about building towards the 82nd game and the playoffs.”

Slotted as a 2C, it is fair to wonder if this former Team Canada centreman is even that anymore.

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“You get to a certain point and you’re waiting for a bounce, waiting for things to go your way, to give you the energy to get over the hump, and that’s not really how it works,” Toews told Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press. “I try my best to improve my game. I think it’s getting better. Each game I’m getting chances.”

Toews had no points or shots against Buffalo, and tonight he’ll go nose-to-nose with Oilers 2C Leon Draisaitl — a superstar right in his prime who is coming off a four-point night in a 9-4 win over Seattle on Thursday.

It’s likely difficult for Toews to try and lead his new team through the hardest part of their season when his own game is barely getting him by.

“We have a lot of leaders in this locker room, a lot of experience, been on winning teams. We have the energy to be one of the top teams in the league,” Toews said in the Free Press. “For me, it’s taking time to find my place but I try to have the mentality like when I was a captain — be a leader.

“It takes time but I’m starting to find my place here.”

He’d better hurry.

Colorado leads the Central, a full 15 points ahead of the Jets — and it’s only Dec. 6.

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