Game 29: Winnipeg Jets vs Columbus Blue Jackets pre-game report

The Jets have ended a tough slog of a schedule with back-to-back wins over the Sabres on Thursday and the Blackhawks last night. They are back in Winnipeg where they will take on the Blue Jackets tonight in just their second back-to-back game of the season looking for a third straight victory.

They face a Columbus team that has lost three straight games and who sit dead last in the Metro Division with a 11-12-3 record. They actually score quite a bit but they also give up a lot of goals. They come into the game with the 28th ranked power play and the 29th ranked penalty kill.

With the Jets we wonder if they try to work in some of their guys who haven’t been playing to inject some fresh legs into the lineup which could include David Gustafsson, Dylan Coghlan and Colin Miller. Even though he wasn’t overworked in the game yesterday it seems likely they give Connor Hellebuyck the night off in favour of Eric Comrie. Of course without the benefit of morning skate we will have to wait until warm-up skate at 4:30 PM CST.

Skate news:

No morning skate.

Warm-up news:

Jets were led out by Eric Comrie who will get the start in net. Lots of extras out on the ice including all three healthy scratches from last game (Gustafsson, Coghlan and Miller) although Ville Heinola is not out there.

Scott Arniel on the CJOB pre-game show indicated Miller would come in for Heinola as per Judy Owen of the Canadian Press.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-Pionk
Fleury-DeMelo
Stanley-Miller

Comrie
Hellebuyck

Blue Jackets projected lines & D pairs:

Voronkov-Monahan-Marchenko
Sillinger-Fantilli-Johnson
Aston-Reese-Danforth-Olivier
Pyyhthia-Kuraly-Labanc

Werenski – Fabbro
Provorov – Severson
Christiansen – Harris

Merzlikins
Tarasov

Based on the last game they played.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 5 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 7:40 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.