Game 17: Winnipeg Jets vs Tampa Bay Lightning pre-game report

The Jets got their three-game road trip off to a good start on Tuesday when they went into New York and defeated a very good Rangers team by a final score of 6-3. They took Wednesday off as they travelled to Florida where they will play the Lightning tonight and the Panthers on Saturday. We’ve extensively detailed how good a run this Winnipeg club is on at 15-1-0 with a current seven-game win streak and they are 7-0-0 on the road.

We did discuss on the last Illegal Curve Post-Game Show that we think it might be a game Eric Comrie gets in net so that will bear watching as it gives Connor Hellebuyck some rest before going up against the red-hot defending Stanley Cup champions on Saturday/Tuesday.

This Tampa Bay team are 5th in the Atlantic Division having gone 4-5-1 in their last ten games. They do play well at home currently with a 4-1-0 record at Amalie Arena. They sit 14th in the NHL in goals for with 49 and 9th in the NHL in goals against with 45. Their power play is 21st in the league at 17.8% while their penalty kill ranks 24th at 75%.

Skate news:

As per Mitchell Clinton of the Jets no changes to the forwards or D pairs but as we suspected it will be Eric Comrie who gets the start, his fourth of the season.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Iafallo

Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Fleury-Miller

Comrie
Hellebuyck

Lightning projected lines & D pairs:

Hagel – Cirelli – Kucherov
Guentzel – Paul – Atkinson
Goncalves – Geekie – Chaffee
Girgensons – Glendening – Eyssimont

Hedman –  Moser
McDonagh – Cernak
Lilleberg – Perbix

Vasilevskiy
Johansson

These were the lines from practice according to Benjamin Pierce of the Lightning.

Pre-game comments from Bolts coach Jon Cooper:

On what he learned about Winnipeg:

“Probably their biggest attribute is they don’t beat themselves and I bet if you look at a lot of their wins, including theirs against us we beat ourselves and they’re really good at not doing that and if you have the discipline not to do that you’ll win a lot of games in this league.”

Growth he’s seen in Mark Scheifele’s game:

“For me Scheif, I’ve had him twice, because I had him a World Championships too. If you’re gonna talk about student of the game and somebody that follows everything and knows everything that’s going on in this league, it’s Mark Scheifele, and I really appreciate that about him, especially when I’m lacking some stat detail, I can always go to him. He really cares about the game and I think he would probably be known as an offensive player for most of his career. And I would say the best two-way play of his career is going on right now. There’s no doubt about that.”

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 6 PM CST.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. Reminder to join us on the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show around 8:40 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.