Game 37: Winnipeg Jets vs Ottawa Senators pre-game report

We learned quite a bit in the first post-Christmas practice for the Jets on Friday. Defenceman Haydn Fleury is week-to-week with a lower-body injury after the last game against the Leafs while Logan Stanley returned to skate as a full participant. As a result of the injury to Fleury the team recalled Dylan Coghlan from the Moose. Both Stanley and Heinola were used on the left side of the third pairing so we will have to see if head coach Scott Arniel reveals which player will get the call.

Speaking of things we learned yesterday the Senators are also dealing with injuries but problematically for the red-hot (8-2-0) club it is at the goalie position. With Linus Ullmark dealing with back spasms according to Tim Baines of the Ottawa Citizen and Anton Forsberg who will travel but sounds like he may not be available. If he isn’t then they are going to have ride with the duo of Mads Sogaard (28 NHL games) and Leevi Merilainen (4 NHL games).

After getting off to a slow start Ottawa have been red-hot of late (8-2-0) as they challenge for a playoff spot in the East. They’ve been an average road team (8-8-1) with a top 10 power play (8th overall) and the 22nd ranked penalty kill.

Skate news:

As per Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press it looks like Dylan Coghlan will be the odd man out. He also indicated that there appears to be a question mark up front as David Gustaffson and Rasmus Kupari didn’t stay out for extra work.

Warm-up news:

Rasmus Kupari is in for David Gustafsson.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Miller-Pionk
Stanley-Heinola

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Senators projected lines & D pairs:

Tkachuk-Stützle-Giroux
Reinhardt-Norris-Batherson
Cousins-Pinto-Greig
Gregor-Ostapchuk-Gaudette

Sanderson-Hamonic
Chabot-Jensen
Kleven-JBD

Sogaard
Merilainen

Via the TSN 1200 twitter account from AM skate.

Coach’s comments:

Jets coach Scott Arniel confirmed that Coghlan is out. He also said he doesn’t expect to stick with the D pairs as listed above. Indicated he wants to get Neal Pionk his minutes. “Our top three will get big ice”.

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 join us on our YouTube channel for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show around 8:40 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.