There are more questions than answers for Winnipeg today ahead of the afternoon start against division rival St. Louis. The Jets are down to just 10 healthy forwards with Gustafsson and Svechnikov dealing with injury. Due to a covid situation with the Moose, which caused them to cut their five-game road trip short, there is some uncertainty as to the ability to make a recall.
Add to that the team sent Nate Schmidt home on Saturday as he wasn’t feeling well ahead of practice and that leaves a possibility that they could be without him as well.
For now the projected lineup is as it looked like at practice on Saturday and will be updated when we hear from interim head coach Dave Lowry.
Recall options:
The Moose are a very balanced team and with Gustafsson already recalled and Cole Perfetti with Team Canada at the World Juniors there are a number of candidates who could be recalled. I am leaning towards them recalling Jeff Malott, who they signed to an NHL deal last summer and/or hard-working Kristian Reichel, who is in the last year of a two year deal as they may as well see what they’ve got with these two potentially at the NHL level. The Jets could also recall Austin Poganski who has been heating up, Mikey Eyssimont who is probably the most offensive of this group and the always dependable CJ Suess.
Of course as of right now they’ve only got $190,000 in cap space as per Cap Friendly so any moves they make with a recall will need to be offset.
Recall news:
The Jets announced CJ Suess and Kristian Reichel have been recalled from the Moose; move Blake Wheeler to LTIR. If David Gustafsson cannot go then you can probably expect the lines and D pairs below.
Warm-up skate:
Both CJ Suess and Kristian Reichel (wearing 87) taking part but no Nate Schmidt. Reichel even got his solo lap as he gets ready for his first NHL game.
Jets projected lines & D pairs:
Stastny-Scheifele-Ehlers
Connor-Dubois-Vesalainen
Copp-Lowry-Toninato
Harkins-Suess-Reichel
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-Beaulieu
Hellebuyck
Comrie
*if Schmidt isn’t available then Stanley could move up to be paired with Morrissey and Beaulieu could draw in.
Up Next:
Puck drop is at 2 pm CDT. Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action which includes post-game interviews from Jets players as well as from head coach Paul Maurice. You can also join us afterwards for our post-game show here (be sure to smash that like/subscribe button).
