The dawning of a new era in Winnipeg takes place today as, despite yesterday being the first official day of Dave Lowry‘s tenure as interim head coach of the Jets, the focus all morning and into the afternoon/evening was on Paul Maurice’s resignation.
Today the team hits the ice with some question marks as both David Gustafsson and Evgeny Svechnikov left last night’s 5-2 loss to the Capitals and there weren’t updates after the game. What makes their potential absences even trickier is that the Moose had to return to Winnipeg and cut their five-game road trip short due to COVID so while they are confirmed home we don’t know about player availability.
Skate news:
As per Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet a few players missing this morning including the aforementioned David Gustafsson and Evgeny Svechnikov as well as defenceman Nate Schmidt. Wieber provides the lines and D pairs at today’s skate below.
Lines and D pairs:
Stastny-Scheifele-Ehlers
Connor-Dubois-Vesalainen
Copp-Lowry-Toninato
Harkins
Morrissey-Stanley
Dillon-Pionk
Beaulieu-DeMelo
Hellebuyck
Comrie
Players media availability:
Coach media availability:
Topics:
1) Updates on players missing from skate.
2) Moose being back home, seeing a recall (:29)
3) What is his philosophy when it comes to 11/7 (:47)
4) The type of player they would want to recall from the Moose (1:14)
5) Did he take a moment to soak in yesterday at all? (1:36)
6) How does he feel the players handled yesterday? (2:28)
7) Did they get enough grade A chances last night? (3:18)
8) How does he see next week or two? (3:42)
9) Focus on what is right in front of them (4:20)
10) Switching Scheifele and Connor on the power play (4:55)
11) Matching up against the Blues (5:41)
12) Opportunity for Kristian Vesalainen (6:17)
Health updates:
According to Dave Lowry forwards David Gustafsson “probably be day-to-day as of right now” and Evgeny Svechnikov would “probably be a little bit longer”. More here.
Nate Schmidt wasn’t feeling well today so the team sent him home out of an abundance of caution.
Up next:
The Jets are expected to conclude their homestand tomorrow afternoon against the Blues. Start your Sunday with the morning papers at 7 AM, stay with us throughout the day for the latest news. Reminder we want you to join us on the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show following the final buzzer.
