Game 16: Jets vs. Avalanche pre-game report

The Jets will not have a game day morning skate today as they come off a 3-2 win last night in Arizona. This game has a Déjà vu like feeling.  Can the Jets win in Colorado following a Thursday night win? Two weeks ago redux.

From Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun we learn that coach Maurice wouldn’t indicate who Jacob Trouba is coming into the lineup for but did say that he will be making his season debut tonight.  Seems likely it will be for Paul Postma but we will have to go based on pre-game warm up skate:

Ehlers-Scheifele-Laine
Connor-Petan-Wheeler
Copp-Lowry-Tanev
Dano-Burmistrov-Thorburn

Morrissey-Byfuglien
Enstrom-Myers
Chiarot-Trouba*

Hutchinson
Hellebuyck

*Dennis Beyak in the TSN pre-game show indicated that Paul Postma will come out of the lineup in favour of Jacob Trouba.

Coach pre-game audio:

Paul Maurice:  Is Jacob Trouba in the lineup?  What has he done to get into the lineup.  Where is he starting and what does he expect from him?  Who starts tonight?  Does his play in Colorado two weeks previously factor in?  Winning in different ways, what do they need to do to keep that going?  What has he liked from Dano’s game?  Getting under an opponents skin.  What has he seen from Copp since moving him to the left side?  What has impressed him most about Josh Morrissey?  The way he (Morrissey) played that 3 on 1.

Audio courtesy of TSN 1290 Winnipeg.

Avalanche lines come via Brian Munz of TSN 1290 Winnipeg:

Rantanen-Duchene-MacKinnon
Landeskog-Soderberg-Bourque
Martinsen-Grigorenko-Iginla
McLeod-Mitchell-Colborne

Zadorov-Johnson
Tyutin-Barrie
Beauchemin-Gelinas

Varlamov
Pickard

We now have answers to our big question marks for tonight:

1) Will Jacob Trouba see his first action of the season?  Coach Maurice in his pre-game comments yesterday alluded to the fact that it would be based on Trouba’s level of preparedness as well as the performance of the defence.

2) Will Connor Hellebuyck start his fifth game in a row or will the Jets bench boss likely give Michael Hutchinson the opportunity to get between the pipes.  While this is the likely option coach Maurice has shown a willingness to ride a goaltender.

3) How close are any of the injured players to returning?  We know that Mark Stuart is close.  It sounds like Perreault, Stafford and Little likely won’t see game action for a bit.

We may have answers to all three questions via Brian Munz of TSN 1290 Winnipeg who reported that:

“Only players on the ice for pregame skate were Hellebuyck, Postma, Stuart, Trouba”.