Game 34: Jets vs Flames pre-game report

The Jets are coming into tonight’s game having won two straight and are going up against a Flames team that has lost three straight and who are fighting to keep up in the playoff race. It will be an important first game of three between these two teams during this mini series in Calgary.

Morning skate news:

It will be the same lineup for Winnipeg tonight that they’ve been using. Jets coach Paul Maurice indicated that Connor Hellebuyck starts.

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

Flames projected lines & D pairs:

Here is a look at how Calgary appears to be stacking up according to Pat Steinberg of Sportsnet 960.

Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm
Tkachuk-Backlund-Mangiapane
Lucic-Bennett-Dube
Nordstrom-Ryan-Leivo

Giordano-Andersson
Hanifin-Tanev
Valimaki-Nesterov

Markstrom

Player availability:

Coach availability:

Topics:

1. The play of the fourth line.
2. Importance of team being able to talk the talk and walk the walk.
3. Does he have more faith in the fourth line than he has in the past?
4. Players getting better and not being defined by past expectations.
5. Significance of having a consistent lineup.
6. His assessment of the game of Pierre-Luc Dubois since acquisition.
7. Does he break up the 56 game schedule up?
8. Rhythem vs rest for Connor Hellebuyck.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 9:00 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).