DETROIT – The one visit the Winnipeg Jets make to Detroit each season is always special for the Michigan products on the team’s roster, but it might be even more so for Kyle Connor tonight.

The speedy forward is on a nine-game point streak to open the season – already a franchise record – and if he extended that number to 10, he would reach 500 career points.

He would also have quite an audience to see him do this.

“Family, friends, brothers, they bring their friends. It’s just whoever wants to come,” said Connor, who expects to have more than two dozen fans in the crowd at Little Caesars Arena. “We all get passes and catch up really quickly. Obviously it’s such a whirlwind of comings and goings, so you try to greet as many people as possible.

In addition to all those people in the stands, he had also reached the milestone in front of former teammates. Of course, former Jets Andrew Copp and Ben Chiarot are on this list, as are old friend Dylan Larkin and University of Michigan teammates like JT Compher and Tyler Motte.

“That was a big part of my career path, playing with those two at Michigan,” Connor said, reflecting on his 2015-16 campaign that saw him named a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as a best player in the NCAA.

It was a huge opportunity for me to grow and learn from these guys. They were juniors and I was a freshman at Michigan. I learned a lot from them and I hope I showed them something too.

Yes, reaching that milestone would be nice and a memorable moment, but Connor would love to see his Jets get back in the win column at the same time.

The Jets (8-1-0) have just suffered their first loss of the season, a 6-4 defeat at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday. Connor’s teammate – and former Michigan State Spartan – Mason Appleton said the team’s focus was very specific after allowing five goals at even strength.

“I don’t think we defended hard and in the right way. Taking them out in front of our net, really managing the play in our own end will help us create offense,” Appleton said. “Handling the puck through the neutral zone and not turning it over, taking what they give us – whether it’s in a rush play or if we have to put pucks behind them and go fight them and win races. We have to take what the game gives us and obviously impose our will too.

Jets head coach Scott Arniel shuffled his lines midway through the second period, then again in the third, as the Jets tried to recover from a 4-0 deficit just 3:25 into the period. start of the second period.

But during Wednesday’s morning skate, he returned to the lines that started the night — and helped the Jets snap that eight-game winning streak into the season opener.

“We did a lot of good things before the last game,” Arniel said. “I really like what our lines did. Each line gave us the opportunity to win games for us, to create or add momentum to the games themselves. They all did what they had to do, we just have to get back to it.

Connor Hellebuyck – another high-profile Michigan product on the Jets roster – is 3-3-0 in Detroit over his career and should get the start in goal.

The line-up projected in front of him looks like this:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi

Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers

Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton

Barron-Kupari-Iafallo

Morrissey-DeMelo

Samberg-Pionk

Stanley Miller

The Red Wings (4-4-1) just lost 3-2 in overtime against the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday. It was their second straight loss to end a streak of three matches in four days.

Despite the loss to Edmonton, head coach Derek Lalonde felt his team handled this busy period well.

“Consecutive operations are challenging,” he said. “Especially three (games) in four (days) and having an opponent like that sitting on us. Quite impressed with the guys’ effort (Sunday).

Detroit is averaging 2.78 goals per game this season, which puts them in the middle of the pack in the National Hockey League (Winnipeg is second in that category with 4.44). Arniel also believes that Detroit’s blue line has the ability to frequently join the rush.

“It’s an attacking team. They’re going to come in transition,” Arniel said. “This young defense is coming. We need to make sure we move back, protect the insides from the ice, especially at this entrance. Everyone is right. We have to take them out of the game. We can’t allow them to let them go to their game. We talked about this earlier. We have to go out and win these games from these teams. »

Arniel knows he has a veteran group and expects the Jets to respond well after their first loss. This feeling is also felt in the locker room.

“It’s a new mindset,” Appleton said. “During such a long winning streak, maybe it dawns on you a little bit more as you go along. Now it’s just a new opportunity to start again and get started here. We didn’t like the way we played last game and it’s a new roster now.

Puck drop is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT.