Game 29: Jets vs Predators pre-game report

After being the talk of the NHL for a bit the Jets have hit a mini slide losing their last couple of home games and will look to conclude the three games in Winnipeg with a win against their division rival Nashville. This is the first time they have faced each other this season.

The Jets had an illness causing difficulty in the game against the Golden Knights on Tuesday and it was sufficient to require cancelling practice which had been scheduled for Wednesday morning. Morning skate will give us an opportunity to see if it continues to be a factor. We shall also have to wait and see if the team looks for Connor Hellebuyck in net or if they give David Rittich although it seems more likely they hold out the Winnipeg backup for the back-to-back they have this weekend.

Skate news:

As per Ken Wiebe it was Connor Hellebuyck going through his starting routine. He also indicated that Jansen Harkins and Morgan Barron are not skating this morning. In their place are Axel Jonsson-Fjallby and newly claimed Karson Kuhlman. We will have to wait and see what head coach Rick Bowness says about the two missing players. Also he added that Kyle Capobianco isn’t skating.

Lineup decisions:

Jets head coach Rick Bowness indicated “We won’t know our lineup till tonight. We’ve got a couple of game time decisions”.

Warm-up skate:

No changes as the game-time decisions appear to be ok and the Winnipeg debut for Karson Kuhlman will have to wait for another day.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Perfetti-Scheifele-Wheeler
Connor-Dubois-Eyssimont
Barron-Lowry-Harkins
Gustafsson-Stenlund-Gagner

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt

Hellebuyck
Rittich

Betway Odds:

While the Jets have lost two straight they are still 7-3-0 in their last ten games with a +19 goal differential whereas their opponent this evening is sitting with a 12-12-3 record and a whopping -15 goal differential. Despite those two home losses the Jets are still 10-5-0 in Winnipeg while Nashville counters with a 5-7-1 road record. With that in mind it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the oddsmakers are giving the edge to the home team. Be sure to check out the latest game day odds from Betway.

Players media availability:

Coach media availability:

Topics:

1) Is Karson Kuhlman making his Jets debut tonight?
2) What is the scouting report on Karson Kuhlman? (:47)
3) Nikolaj Ehlers skating on Tuesday/timeline? (1:24)
4) What does he expect from his group tonight? (2:09)
5) Not practicing impacting penalty kill (3:33)
6) Players on IV drips (4:31)
7) Preparing for physicality from Nashville (4:56)

Health news:

Rick Bowness was asked about Nikolaj Ehlers who skated yesterday. He said he was “on schedule” but didn’t really want to give out a specific timeline. Said he is “still a couple of weeks away clearly, at least”.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7:00 pm CST.  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 Rick Bowness.

You can also join us afterwards for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show (be sure to smash that like/subscribe button). This season you’ll have a chance to win great schwag including authentic Jets jerseys, hats, etc after every single game and now a grand prize of a pair of tickets to an NHL game of your choice (For a variety of ways to enter click here).