Game 34: Winnipeg Jets vs Anaheim Ducks pre-game report

The Jets travelled from northern to southern California after leaving San Jose with a 4-3 win last night as they look to make the Moms Trip a perfect 3/3 when they take on the Ducks this evening in Anaheim. While there is some consternation with how they are playing of late Winnipeg has actually gone 5-1-1 in their last seven games and sit atop the NHL standings.

Since they played last night there won’t be a morning skate which means there may be some lineup uncertainty. Is Nikolaj Ehlers, who was listed as day-t0-day by head coach Scott Arniel, ready to return? Is Nikita Chibrikov able to play tonight after blocking a shot in the 1st period yesterday which caused him to leave the game although he did come back and finish it. Might the team get Dylan Coghlan, who has only played one game this season, and Ville Heinola (seven games) into the contest to get some fresh legs? For now the only expected change is Eric Comrie getting the net from Connor Hellebuyck.

The power play for Winnipeg is clicking again which has returned them to top spot in the NHL at 31.7% although the penalty kill remains in bottom third of the league at 20th. The good news for the visitors is the home team this evening is ranked 28th on the PP and 27th on the PK so special teams will be a big advantage.

Despite being the last place team in the Pacific Division the Ducks have actually given up the second least number of goals (90) in their division which I’d normally attribute to the strong play of John Gibson (3.00 GAA and .909 save%) but he’s only played ten games with Lukas Dostal getting 17 (2.69 GAA and a .920 save%). However, Anaheim does not score very often sitting dead last in the NHL with 71 goals this season. By way of comparison Winnipeg has 50 more goals scored to date with the benefit of having played four more games (121).

Skate news:

No morning skate.

News of the day:

The Jets won’t be using Dylan Coghlan in the game on the backend as he was placed on waivers. We did learn via PuckPedia that Nikolaj Ehlers has been activated and David Gustafsson has been placed on IR. We will have to wait and hear from head coach Scott Arniel how he plans to configure his lineup or wait until warm-up skate starts around 8:30 PM CST.

Warm-up news:

Nikita Chibrikov and Ville Heinola on the ice for the skate. So is Nikolaj Ehlers. No Colin Miller. As expected Eric Comrie gets the start.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey – DeMelo
Fleury – Pionk
Stanley – Heinola

Comrie
Hellebuyck

Ducks projected lines & D pairs:

Vatrano-Strome-Terry
Killorn-Carlsson-McGinn
Gauthier-McTavish-Fabbri
Leason-Lundestrom-Harkins/Johnston

(D-men rotate thru pairs)
Zellweger-Dumoulin
LaCombe-Gudas
Mintyukov-Trouba
Helleson

Dostal-Gibson

Via Zach Cavanagh of The Sporting Tribune as per practice on Tuesday.

Coach’s comments:

To follow.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 9 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 11:40 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.