Game 19: Jets vs. Canadiens pre-game report

The Jets have won two straight and after a few days of practice will get back into the swing of a condensed schedule tonight when they welcome the Habs to town for the first time this season. Biggest question mark ahead of puck drop for the Jets is the status of Tucker Poolman who was dealing with an upper-body injury that kept him out of the 3rd period of their last game and based on yesterday’s practice it looked like Sami Niku could be returning to the lineup for the first time since January 19th.

Roster news:

Ken Wiebe of Sportnet indicated that Tucker Poolman is wearing a normal jersey for today’s morning skate.  He also added that the following players are missing also he surmises that they are likely exercising their options to skate including: Derek Forbort, Nathan Beaulieu, Paul Stastny, Adam Lowry and Mason Appleton.

Once practice had ended Ken indicated that Tucker Poolman stayed on for extra work and Sami Niku came off so it does look like Niku gets his first start since last month.  Update: Jets coach Paul Maurice confirmed Niku is playing tonight.

For now the lines and D pairs are based on yesterday’s practice.  Jets coach Paul Maurice said he will start things off the way they looked in practice on Wednesday but that it could change.   Stay tuned for warm up for final confirmation.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Forbort-Pionk
Beaulieu-Morrissey
Niku-DeMelo

Hellebuyck
Brossoit

Player availability:

Coach availability:

Topics:

1. What has he seen from Sami Niku during this time off and his drawing back in.
2. High scoring games between the Jets and Habs.
3. What does Montreal do to have such success 5 on 5?
4. Neal Pionk completing his degree.
5. On “trying to score goals differently” against the Flames and Habs.
6. How will he configure his defence?
7. Passing a message through the team.
8. Freshening up his message.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7:00 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 Jets players as well as from head coach Paul Maurice.