Game 17: Jets vs. Canucks pre-game report

The Jets road trip continues tonight in BC as they take on the Canucks for the first time out west in some time (as they never ended up playing in Vancouver last season due to the pause).  It is another game with Pierre-Luc Dubois as a question mark for the Jets since the team was off on Thursday.

Roster news:

An update from Vancouver via Kevin Woodley of NHL dot com indicates that veteran centre Nate Thompson is taking rushes and looks to return to the lineup to centre the 4th line, which would bump Kristian Vesalainen back out of the lineup.  Thompson has been out of the lineup with a lower-body injury since his last game on January 21st.  Kevin added that Laurent Brossoit was first goalie off and will get the net for tonight’s contest.  It will be his fourth start of the season and first since a win over the Flames on February 2nd.

Update:

Coach confirms that Nate Thompson is back in tonight and Kristian Vesalainen is out.

Health news:

Jets coach Paul Maurice confirms that he wants Pierre-Luc Dubois to have a full practice tomorrow and then will look for him as possible for Sunday.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Wheeler
Copp-Stastny-Ehlers
Perreault-Lowry-Appleton
Harkins-Thompson-Lewis

Morrissey-Poolman
Forbort-Pionk
Beaulieu-DeMelo

Brossoit
Hellebuyck

Player availability:

Coach availability:

Topics:

1. Lineup questions
2. Putting Brossoit in the net tonight.
3. How much will the addition of Thompson help the PK.
4. Upping the risk profile throughout the course of the game.
5. His team’s physicality.
6. His team’s identity.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 9:00 pm CT.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action which includes post-game interviews from the Jets room as well as from coach Maurice.