Game 3: Winnipeg Jets vs L.A. Kings pre-game report

It’s being billed as the clash between Three former Kings in Gabriel Vilardi, Alex Iafallo and Rasmus Kupari who will all face their former team for the first time this evening and the return of Pierre-Luc Dubois, who played in Winnipeg for three seasons before finally securing his wish this summer to play for Los Angeles.

Gabriel Vilardi spent the previous four seasons in California, Alex Iafallo was there for six seasons while Rasmus Kupari split time between the NHL/AHL clubs of Los Angeles for four seasons.

On the other side is Pierre-Luc Dubois who was the big return in the Patrik Laine trade. His departure from Winnipeg had felt like it had been ongoing forever, forever, forever.

Lots of fun storylines for tonight’s contest.

Skate news:

Starts at 10:30 AM. For now the projected lines and D pairs are based on yesterday’s skate. About the only news that was confirmed is that head coach Rick Bowness confirmed that Connor Hellebuyck would get the start tonight.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Dillon-Schmidt

Hellebuyck
Brossoit

Player pre-game interviews:

Coach pre-game interview:

Topics included:

1) How does he prepare for the Kings 1-3-1
2) What are his D/F doing to break through the 1-3-1? (1:06)
3) Scheifele’s dominant faceoff performance vs Florida (1:56)
4) Being a puck possession team, requiring emphasis on faceoffs (2:50)
5) Learning tricks of the trade at the dot (3:44)
6) Thoughts on Anze Kopitar (4:26)
7) Does Kopitar require line matching? (5:13)
8) What’s it like to face Kings with their depth down the middle? (5:47)
9) Does he offer any advice to players facing former team for first time? (6:15)

Betway Odds:

The Kings come into this game having a single point of a possible four although they did manage to comeback from a 5-2 deficit to force OT against the Hurricanes which they ultimately lost in a nine-round shootout. The Jets meanwhile have played two very good hockey games and are coming off a big win over Eastern Conference champion Florida. Not surprisingly, the experts have the home side as favourites in this contest. Be sure to check out the latest game day odds from Betway.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7 pm CDT.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action which includes post-game interview 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).