For the first time this season, the Winnipeg Jets face an opponent they have seen before.

They’re on the road against the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team they managed to pull out a 7-4 win against just over a week ago.

The Lightning will be without one of their star players in Brayden Point, but head coach Scott Arniel knows that won’t slow Tampa down.

“There’s still a lot of veteran players there that know how to win hockey games. They’ve had a week off here to get back in shape. We know (Nikita Kucherov) is going to see a ton of ice time, and they gave us a hard time in our building,” Arniel said.

Jets defenseman Dylan DeMelo said the main thing to know with the Lightning is that their best players always find a way to make you pay if you make a mistake.

“They’re a well-balanced team. No matter who we play, it’s all about us, our play and our focus. We just have to keep doing what we’re doing. Hopefully we can win tonight. That goes “It’s a good match. They’ve been out for a while, so we expect them to start quickly, or at least we want to start quickly. So the first five or 10 minutes are going to be crucial,” DeMelo said.

Structure was one of the key factors in the Jets’ strong performance that propelled them to the top of the NHL standings with a 15-1 record.

“We have a certain style of play that we have to play all the time to be successful, and that’s been built into us over the last couple of years and obviously early this year. When we get away from that, then the games sort of wide open; obviously the opposition gets a lot more looks than we want, but these guys do a really good job of resetting, whether it’s from game to game or team to team. the other, from a period to the other,” Arniel said.

This has been Connor Hellebuyck’s net for most of the season, but he takes Thursday off, with Eric Comrie taking over the blue paint.

Arniel said it was important to him to give Comrie a start.

“It’s just this whole schedule coming up,” Arniel said. “We know what the workload is like with the Four Nations and probably Helly playing there, so we’re trying to get Coms into as many games as possible to get him up and running.”

The Jets will look to make it eight straight wins and improve to 16-1 as of 6 p.m.