Game 39: Winnipeg Jets vs Toronto Maple Leafs pre-game report

The Jets appear to have hit rock bottom sitting dead last in the entire NHL and while they probably deserved a few more points than they earned last month they completed the December calendar with just two wins including a 2-1 defeat last night to the Wings in Detroit. Shocking for a team that won the Presidents’ Trophy last season although not as shocking if you’ve been watching this team since the start of the campaign.

While things are going better for the Leafs than the team they are hosting this evening, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for them right now as they sit on the outside of the playoff line. The good news for the Leafs is they are only four points back of the second wild card spot.

While they are 4-4-2 in their last ten games they’ve been very good at home going 13-5-5 record at Scotiabank Arena. They have a weaker power play (25th overall) but a very solid penalty kill (4th overall).

Skate news:

No morning skate as the Jets played last night.

Warm-up news:

Starts at 5:30 PM CST.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Iafallo
Barron-Lowry-Pearson
Niederreiter-Toews-Nyquist

Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Stanley-Schenn/Miller

Comrie/Hellebuyck

Leafs projected lines & D pairs:

Knies – Tavares – Domi
Cowan – Roy – Robertson
Maccelli – Laughton – McMann
Lorentz – Quillan – Jarnkrok

Benoit – Stecher
McCabe – OEL
Rielly – Myers

Woll/Hildeby

As per Leafs reporter for the official NHL website Dave McCarthy.

Players media availability:

Josh Morrissey to speak at 3:15 CST.

Coach media availability:

Scott Arniel to speak at 3:25 CST.

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.