Game 39: Jets vs Panthers pre-game report

The Jets will be looking to end their current skid of 0-2-2 after their recent four-game road trip against four playoff teams didn’t go exactly as planned. They will face another stiff test in a Panthers team that sits tied for first place in the Atlantic Division with the Lightning although they have done most of their damage at home (21-3-0) as compared to what they’ve accomplished on the road (7-6-5).

Transaction Report:

With the status of Dylan DeMelo uncertain the team announced that they had recalled 2017 3rd rounder Johnny Kovacevic to the taxi squad. They also announced that they had reassigned goalie Arvid Holm and forward Mikey Eyssimont to the Moose.

Covid news:

The team also announced that Dominic Toninato and assistant coach Charlie Huddy had been placed into NHL’s COVID-19 protocols. Although there is some news on that front as per Murat Ates of The Athletic Winnipeg who indicated that there was an update following morning skate in Winnipeg on Toninato as follows “Jets staff just updated us. Dominic Toninato had a false positive and if he tests negative today, he may exit protocol and play tonight.”.

Morning skate:

Looks like Evgeny Svechnkov will draw back in with Toninato out and doesn’t appear that Johnny Kovacevic will make his NHL debut as per the lines and D pairs Ken Wiebe is reporting from today’s skate. Both Dylan DeMelo and Logan Stanley, who are dealing with injuries, aren’t skating according to Wieber.

Health news:

As per Jets interim head coach Dave Lowry he provided some updates on his injured players saying DeMelo is day to day with an upper-body and Stanley is probably gonna be longer than day-to-day. He said this about 2018 2nd rounder David Gustafsson who has been out since January 2nd “Gus is coming along but he’s not close to being a player”.

Late breaking lineup news:

An hour ahead of puck drop the Jets announced eight more moves. The ones relevant to tonight’s game including Josh Morrissey being added to covid protocol and the recall to the roster of Kristian Reichel, Johnny Kovavevic and Ville Heinola. We shall have to wait for warm up skate to see how it impacts the lineup.

Warm up skate:

As you can see from the lines below it will just be Ville Heinola who draws into the lineup as well as Evgeny Svechnikov (for Toninato) and Comrie replaces Berdin as backup.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Dubois-Perfetti
Copp-Scheifele-Wheeler
Stastny-Lowry-Poganski
Vesalainen-Harkins-Svechnikov

Dillon-Schmidt
Samberg-Pionk
Heinola-Beaulieu

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Player media availability:

Coach media availability:

Topics:

1) Is he satisfied with his team’s starts in games?
2) What is he seeing in the video on the Panthers?
3) What goes into the decision to using Nathan Beaulieu on 3rd pairing?
4) Health updates on David Gustafsson, Dylan DeMelo and Logan Stanley?
5) What is Florida doing to score so much?
6) Lack of depth scoring from the bottom six.
7) Shots given up on penalty kill have gone way down.
8) Increased shot volume on the power play.
9) Any tendencies he is seeing when the team has a dip?
10) The impact of a potential lack of atmosphere?
11) What has happened that they’ve “fallen out of games”?

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 interviews from Jets players as well as from interim head coach Dave Lowry.

You can also join us afterwards for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show. (be sure to smash that like/subscribe button).