While the mood in Winnipeg isn’t great with all the uncertainty of the RFA (Connor & Laine) as well as Dustin Byfuglien (pondering future) situations, today is a game day as the battle of Friendly Manitoba vs Minnesota Nice kicks off the pre-season here in Winnipeg. The Jets dropped their first pre-season contest on Monday in Edmonton and will be looking to bounce back with a more veteran lineup today against the Wild.
The Jets lines, D pairs and starting goalie come via Ken Wiebe of The Athletic Winnipeg:
Copp-Lowry-Wheeler
Perreault-Scheifele-Chibisov
Vesalainen-Spacek-Griffith
Luoto-Suess-Reichel
Morrissey-Niku
Heinola-Kulikov
Bitetto-Poolman
Brossoit
Berdin
Audio:
Josh Morrissey
Andrew Copp
Mark Scheifele
Coach Maurice: On Dustin Byfuglien’s pondering. Has he talked to Byfuglien? Does it make it tougher to go about his day? How do people get trained to the next man up mentality? Has he prepared a short-term or long-term plan for the potential of Byfuglien not being in the lineup? Has he (Byfuglien) expressed that his days in the league are possibly numbered? Splitting up Wheeler and Scheifele. On the Niku and Morrissey pairing. Small details that happen in a game. On how quickly Morrissey has gone to being the guy who is providing the advice to young guys. With the amount of spots open this year vs last year, does he notice that guys are trying harder? On the things he is doing differently this training camp. His thoughts on Mathieu Perreault cutting his hair.
All audio courtesy of TSN 1290 Winnipeg.
Up Next:
Puck drop is at 7:00 pm CDT. Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action which includes post-game audio from the Jets room as well as from coach Maurice.
