Game 26: Winnipeg Jets vs St. Louis Blues pre-game report

The Jets have hit a slump as they finally returned home to Winnipeg after six games crisscrossing the United States from Pennsylvania to Tennessee to Minnesota to California to Nevada before ending in Texas and then flying home for one game. After a red-hot 15-1-0 start to their season they’ve gone 3-6-0 in their last nine games which still leaves them with an impressive 18-7-0 record on the season. Despite the slide they still remain tied with the Wild for 1st in the NHL in points with 36.

While their road record (9-6-0) has taken a big hit during this stretch they still have one of the best home records in the entire NHL at 9-1-0. With the multitude of injuries their PP which was top in the NHL for quite awhile has slipped to 2nd behind New Jersey although their PK has been on the upswing going from 19th to 16th overall.

There are plenty of question marks for this team including how much longer is Dylan Samberg (broken foot), what’s the latest with Nikolaj Ehlers who missed the last game in Dallas after leaving the game in Vegas during the 2nd period and if there is any insight into what Mark Scheifele is dealing and playing with.

The Blues are benefiting from the new coach bounce as the team has gone 2-0-1 since Jim Montgomery took over the bench back on November 25th. Scoring has been a problem for them this season as they have 31 less goals than Winnipeg this season while giving up 16 more than their opponent. Not surprisingly their power play is ranked 27th in the NHL while their penalty kill is 18th overall.

Pre-skate news:

Jets announced they placed Nikolaj Ehlers on IR and have recalled Brad Lambert from the Moose.

Skate news:

Lots of changes today which you can see below. Brad Lambert as second line centre and Ville Heinola returns.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Fleury-Pionk
Stanley-Heinola

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Blues projected lines & D pairs:

Saad- Thomas – Neighbours
Holloway – Schenn – Kyrou
Bolduc – Sundqvist – Joseph
Toropchenko – Faksa – Walker

Suter – Faulk
Broberg – Parayko
Joseph – Kessel

Hofer
Binnington

These are the lines as per the Blues website.

Player media:

Coach media:

Topics:

1) Updates on Ehlers and Samberg
2) What is he looking for from Brad Lambert? (:57)
3) Benefit of Lambert not having first game jitters (1:52)
4) Has he noticed any differences from Blues after coaching change? (2:24)
5) What’s he looking for from Ville Heinola on right side? (3:08)
6) Moving Mark Scheifele from middle to wing (3:59)
7) Managing what 55 is dealing with vs busy schedule (5:20)
8) Reason for the Brad Lambert recall (5:57)
9) Pairing Ville Heinola and Logan Stanley (6:36)
10) What can he do to get team back when schedule is not letting up (7:03)
11) What does he need to see from 14/64 to be everyday players? (8:32)
12)  What does Hockey Fights Cancer mean to him? (9:47)

Health news:

Head coach Scott Arniel indicated that Nikolaj Ehlers is expected to be out for 7-10 days. He said no hard timeline on Dylan Samberg who broke his foot. Said it’s at least four weeks but said he was walking around both with and without a boot.

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. You can 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.