The Jets looked, briefly, like they’d be back to full health on Friday at practice with the band back together and they even had a full line of healthy scratches. But when the power play drills got underway top centre Mark Scheifele was on the bench. He would subsequently be ruled out of the game tonight by head coach Rick Bowness.
We do know that Connor Hellebuyck will be in the net this evening and the expectation is that Josh Morrissey and Gabriel Vilardi will be good to go (provided neither had a setback following the skate yesterday in Winnipeg).
It will be an optional skate this morning so we may have to wait either until after morning skate to hear what Rick Bowness confirms or until warm-up about 30 minutes before puck drop to get final confirmation.
Morning Skate:
As per Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press the following players skated: Scheifele, Gustafsson, Jonsson-Fjallby, Kupari, Stanley, Chisholm, Hellebuyck, Brossoit.
Jets projected lines & D pairs:
Connor-Namestnikov-Vilardi
Perfetti-Toninato-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Iafallo
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt
Hellebuyck
Brossoit
Coach media:
Tips:
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Betway Odds:
These two teams played a spirited tilt on Wednesday in Toronto and will conclude the home-and-home this evening in Winnipeg. The Leafs have been a better road team (13-5-6) than home team (11-9-2) and have won two straight including the 1-0 OT victory over the Jets. They score a lot (162) and give up a lot (148) for a +14 goal differential. Winnipeg counters as a solid home team (16-6-2) who don’t find the net quite as often as their opponent (146) but clearly allow far fewer against (105) for a +41 goal differential. The oddsmakers are giving the edge to the home team for this contest. Be sure to check out the latest game day odds from Betway.
Up Next:
Puck drop is at 6:00 pm CST. Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. You can also join us afterwards for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show. (Please be sure to smash that like/subscribe button).
