1103 Billeck Jets Notebook | Winnipeg Sun

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While Scott Arniel isn’t one to spend a lot of time looking back, he was still impressed by the difference a week in the NHL can make.

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A week ago, his Winnipeg Jets were left licking their wounds after a 6-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

On Saturday, as the team pulled away from its only mistake of the season with a pair of 6-2 wins, the head coach seemed confident that the lesson he learned against the Leafs will serve them well at home against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday would.

Arniel said the team held a large group meeting after the loss. There was nothing to be proud of in this game.

“And we weren’t,” Arniel said on Saturday. “We definitely weren’t.”

The Jets were fresh off a road trip when Toronto came to town on Monday just as they were coming off a road trip to face Tampa and begin a four-game home stretch.

“I think the game against Toronto helps us,” Arniel said. “We have to get home and you can’t be any different than when we were out. I’ve said it before: there is no other way to play. We have a Winnipeg Jets style of play that we need to continue to play. This means that we attack the opponent from the first moment. We have to do that against Tampa.”

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The Lightning won’t offer the Jets a softer landing either.

They are second in the Atlantic Division entering Saturday’s game and still feature several top NHL players, including Nikita Kucherov, who has nine goals and 18 points in 11 games.

“They are a well-structured and dangerous team, so we have to be prepared,” said former Lightning forward Vladislav Namestnikov. “They have a lot of weapons. We don’t want to get into a back-and-forth game with them, so we’ve got to play our Winnipeg Jet hockey, defense first, and go from there.”

Namestnikov said Winnipeg’s focus must continue to be on its structure and the defense-focused mindset that served it well earlier this year.

“As long as we pay attention to the way we play, everything will be fine,” he said.

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Meanwhile, Namestnikov didn’t know how close his face came to hitting Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Elvis Merzlikins’ skate during a frightening plunge into his crease on Friday.

“I didn’t really see the skate,” he said. “The coaches told me afterwards that it was pretty close. So many things are happening. My leg got stuck so I didn’t even notice the skate.”

Namestnikov is not far removed from taking a puck to the cheek last spring, an injury that forced him out of the playoffs and took most of the summer to fully heal.

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Halloween costumes are a hit

After seeing it in a store, four players on the team decided to dress up as the Scooby-Doo gang for Halloween this year.

Namestnikov portrayed Fred, Nikolaj Ehlers portrayed Shaggy and Alex Iafallo portrayed Scooby-Doo.

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And Velma?

“Nino (Niederreiter) wanted to be Velma for some reason,” Namestnikov said. “I was like, ‘OK.’ He definitely rocked it.

“It was all good and fun, the main thing is that you have a good time, that’s the only thing that matters.”

Dylan Samberg and his wife played Purple Cobra from the movie Dodgeball.

“It was honestly a last-second thing,” Samberg said. “We weren’t quite sure what to do. We found that at the last second at Spirit Halloween and decided to rock with it.”

If you’ve taken a look at the Jets’ social media pages over the past two days, there seems to be a clear winner: David Gustafsson, who starred as The Office’s Dwight Schrute.

“That was good,” said Samberg. “That was exactly right.”

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