Game 29: Jets vs. Canadiens pre-game report

The Jets are coming off a tough 4-2 loss to the Habs on Monday in a game that they played fairly well but got burned by their mistakes. Montreal had come into that last contest having lost their last two games so it was clear they needed to get back in the win column during this trip out west. Tonight’s game is a big one as the visitors sit just three points back of Winnipeg with the same number of games played.

Roster news:

According to Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet no changes expected to the lineup tonight.  He also indicates that Connor Hellebuyck is expected to start the game.

Roster Update:

Coach Maurice confirms that the lineup is the same tonight.

Waiver Claim:

Not a huge surprise that goalie Anton Forsberg was claimed off waivers this morning by the Senators. This will mean that Eric Comrie will slide into that third goalie role.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Forbort-Pionk
Stanley-Poolman

Hellebuyck
Brossoit

Habs projected lines & D pairs:

According to John Lu of TSN here is how Montreal is set to look against the Jets.

Drouin – Kotkaniemi – Anderson
Toffoli – Suzuki – Gallagher
Tatar – Danault – Armia
Byron – Evans – Perry

Edmundson – Weber
Kulak – Petry
Ouellet – Romanov

Price starting
Allen

Player availability:

Coach availability:

Topics:

1. Pierre-Luc Dubois offensive contributions.
2. The play of Zdeno Chara playing at 44 (asked by an NHL correspondent from Germany)
3. Where will we see biggest impact for the second half of the season?
4. Assessing the Jets old Central Division.
5. How diminished are 1st round picks this season? Making trade based on potential opponent.
6. How does he manage the game given their schedule?
7. His thoughts on the baseball style schedule.
8. Lineup?
9. Isolation for players.
10. On the situation in Buffalo and the firing of Ralph Krueger.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 8:00 pm CDT.  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.  You can also join us afterwards for our post-game show here (be sure to smash that like/subscribe button).