Game 29: Winnipeg Jets vs Colorado Avalanche pre-game report

Nothing like a battle for top spot in the Central division on a Saturday night to get you in the holiday spirit. We’re slightly past the midpoint of December and Winnipeg is vying with Colorado and Dallas for 1st place.

Based on what we saw at practice yesterday it doesn’t appear that the Jets will make any moves and given how they played on Wednesday night in Los Angeles who can blame them for sticking with the ‘if it ain’t broke’ philosophy as they dominated an excellent Kings club.

The team hasn’t yet assigned Dominic Toninato so it’s possible he remains with the big club despite clearing waivers on Friday.

Morning skate news:

It was a heavily optional morning skate.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Ehlers-Scheifele-Vilardi
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Barron
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Iafallo-Gustafsson-AJF

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt

Hellebuyck
Brossoit

Coach media:

Tips:

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Topics:

1) Improvements that can be made from last one against Colorado?
2) Challenges presented by Valeri Nichushkin (1:17)
3) Handling success (2:06)
4) Giving up fewest 5 on 5 goals in the NHL (3:09)

Betway Odds:

This is setting up to be a great game between two pretty evenly matched teams. Colorado comes into the game sitting in top spot with 38 points (two more than Winnipeg) although they haven’t been as good on the road (7-5-2) as they’ve been at home (11-4-0) while Winnipeg counters with a solid home record of 9-4-1. The Avalanche score more than the Jets but they also give up more goals which evens out as both teams boast a +17 goal differential. Despite how ever these teams appear the oddsmakers are giving a big edge to the visiting team. Be sure to check out the latest game day odds from Betway.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 6 pm CST.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. You can also join us afterwards for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show. (Please be sure to smash that like/subscribe button).