Winnipeg Slays Dragon, for one night

 

The Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Rockies joined the league together in 1975 as expansion cousins, but that is the last of their similarities.  One team has been the organization others to strive to be, while the other has not be able to come close.

 

Winnipeg has continuously crashed into the mountains, but for one night in a regular season in 1995, the Jets soared through the tough terrain and picked up a regular season victory.  Saturday night, two cousins got together and put on an evenly fought battle with the teams trading chances with the game finishing with Winnipeg registering two more shots than Colorado.  Those two shots were eventually the difference as the Jets slid through the Rockies with a 3-1 victory.

 

It was depth scoring that did the job for Winnipeg as Nikolai Borschevsky (10), Dave Ellett (6) and Dino Ciccarelli (3) each collected goals.  Allan Bester put on a display of goaltending as he turned away 27 of 28 shots and was able to keep Colorado off the scoreboard until past the midway point of the third period.

 

Winnipeg has climbed into second place in their division, trailing the suddenly dominant Vancouver Canucks by two points while also giving up a game in hand.  The Jets have gotten hot lately putting together a 7-2-1 stretch with four straight victories, including the first three games of a six game road trip.  Once the team returns home, the organization will honour long time captain Tom Price by having his jersey raised to the rafters.