Jets Head to Wilderness This Weekend

Mar 11, 2021

The Janesville Jets will travel northwest for the second time in as many weeks for a showdown with the Minnesota Wilderness in Cloquet, Minn. on Friday and Saturday.

The inter-division series between the Midwest and Central teams will be their second meeting on the season. The Wilderness came to Janesville in early January, and the Jets were able to pull off a sweep with 3-0 and 3-2 wins. 

The Wilderness are currently fourth in the Central Division with a 12-14-1-1 record for 26 points. They’ll be looking to break a three-game losing streak in this weekend’s outing with Janesville. 

The Jets on the other hand, are coming off of a split against another Minnesota team, the Magicians, which saw the Magic gain a point lead over the Jets in the Midwest Division standings for first place. Janesville will aim to avenge that with as many points as possible against the Wilderness. 

A strong area for the Jets headed into the weekend is special teams. Janesville remains atop the Midwest Division and is fourth in the league on the power play at 20.7 percent. The Jets are also second in the division, third in the league for penalty killing, which boasts an impressive 90.4 percent success rate. 

Friday’s puck drop in Cloquet is slated for 7:15 p.m. while Saturday’s series finale will kick off at 7:35 p.m. Both games will be available to stream via HockeyTV. Fans can follow the game stats via NAHL Scoreboard, and live updates will be provided on the Jets Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. 


Last Time Out

The Jets traveled to Richfield, Minn. last weekend for their first meeting of the season with the Minnesota Magicians and settled for a split. Friday’s game saw Janesville stage a comeback in the third period after being down one goal through the first 40 minutes. Minnesota was able to tie it all up at two in the final minutes to send the game to overtime, but Minnesota native Charlie Schoen displayed some late heroics and netted his 13th goal of the season for the 3-2 OT winner. 

The Jets were the team on the board first on Saturday and held a 2-1 lead through two periods with goals from Tommy Middleton and Cade Destefani. The home team was able to make a big push in the final period though and scored two unanswered of their own for a 3-2 victory. 


Taking Off

Cade Destefani had a big weekend in Minnesota that once again showed why he’s one of the best in the league. The Western Michigan commit had one goal, one assist and had a plus-two rating in Friday’s victory that earned him the team’s Top Gunner award for the player of the night. The following day, he scored again to complete the three-point weekend. He also received Diamond Center Diamond Player of the Week honors, as selected by the coaches, for his performance. Destefani is currently the Jets’ top scorer with 13 goals and 15 assists, the top scorer in the Midwest Division, and 17th in the league. Each skater above him in the league standings has at least five games in hand to Destefani’s 25.


Flight Schedule

The Jets are staying plenty busy in March and will have three games next week, all at home. Janesville’s annual Battle of Wisconsin series with the Chippewa Steel continues with a single St. Patrick’s Day game at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The Magicians then come to town for a rematch on March 19th and 20th. Limited single game tickets for Wednesday and Friday’s match-ups are now available via the Jets online store.