Game 22: Winnipeg Jets vs Minnesota Wild pre-game report

Time for the second contest between Friendly Manitoba and Minnesota Nice this season which saw the Jets take the first one back in Winnipeg where they defeated the Wild in overtime. Both teams dealing with some health issues as the Jets lost Dylan Samberg to a broken foot while the Wild are without Mats Zuccarello who needed surgery mid month and sounds like they avoided anything series with leading scorer Kirill Kaprizov who missed the last game against Calgary after taking a neutral zone hit in the game against the Oilers. Michael Russo of The Athletic Minnesota reported on Sunday on Kaprizov that “No serious injury. He’s feeling better and team will take it day by day to see how he feel.”. We shall have to wait and see if the second leading scorer in the NHL plays or if they give him a few more days to heal.

If the Jets weren’t sucking up all the oxygen right now more folks would be taking about the Wild who have been almost as impressive this season. Minnesota has a pretty incredible 13-3-4 record which puts them just four points back with one game in hand. While they do not score as often as Winnipeg (85 GF vs 69 GF) the team from Minnesota is similarly stingy when it comes to giving them up (51 for Wpg, 50 for Minny).

Interesting special teams have not been a strength of the Wild who sit with the 16th best power play in the league and the 28th ranked penalty kill. While the Jets power play is firing at quite the same clip they remain 1st in the NHL although the penalty kill continues to not be quite as impressive ranking 21st.

Skate news:

According to Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press it will be Ville Heinola paired alongside Colin Miller in tonight’s game which means he will make his season debut for the Jets and it will be his first NHL regular season game since January 19th, 2023. As well Logan Stanley is on the ice in a yellow, non-contact uniform.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey – DeMelo
Fleury – Pionk
Heinola – Miller

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Wild projected lines & D pairs:

Kaprizov-Eriksson Ek-Boldy
Johansson-Rossi-Hartman
Foligno-Gaudreau-Trenin
Lauko-Jones-Shore

Middleton-Faber
Brodin-Spurgeon
Chisholm-Bogosian

Gustavsson
Fleury

As per Michael Russo of The Athletic Minnesota. He did indicate that head coach John Hynes wouldn’t commit to confirming whether Kaprizov or Marat Khusnutdinov will play.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7 PM CST.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. After the game join us on our YouTube channel for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show around 9:40 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.