Game 24: Winnipeg Jets vs Vegas Golden Knights pre-game report

Bit of an unusual game in Vegas as puck drop is at 5:30 PM PST which is usually when folks are getting up in sin city. The Jets, despite going 2-2-0 so far on this six-game road trip, hit the U.S. Thanksgiving mark as the number 1 team in the entire NHL. Not too shabby. They have been struggling more of late but given the degree of difficulty both in terms of opponents and travel schedule they have faired alright. Might we see some lineup juggling? Will have to wait for warm-up to find out.

And it won’t get easier for Winnipeg after a tough night in Los Angeles on Wednesday when they take on a Vegas team that sits first in the Pacific Division. They’ve scored almost as many goals as the Jets although they’ve given up 14 more in the same number of games. Oddly the Knights and Jets are remarkably similar from a special teams perspective. Winnipeg has the top PP in the NHL at 33.8% while Vegas sits second overall at 30.4%. Similarly when it comes to PK they are neck and neck with Jets at 19th (77.6%) and Golden Knights ranked 20th (77.6%).

Skate news:

No morning skate.

Warm-up news:

Some ch-ch-ch changes as per Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press who indicated a bunch of players were on the ice. Mike confirms Dylan Coghlan will make his Jets debut and Logan Stanley is back.

The Jets indicated Logan Stanley is off IR.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Fleury-Pionk
Stanley-Coghlan

Comrie
Hellebuyck

Golden Knights projected lines & D pairs:

Barbashev—Eichel—Dorofeyev
Hertl—Roy—Kolesar
Howden—Karlsson—Holtz
Pearson—Schwindt—Burke

Hanifin—Pietrangelo
McNabb—Theodore
Hague—Korczak

Hill
Samsonov

This was how they lined up as per Jesse Granger of The Athletic Vegas.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7:30 PM CST.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. You can join us on our YouTube channel for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show around 10:10  PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.