Game 47: Jets vs Wild pre-game report

The Jets find themselves seven points back of the final wild card spot coming into the game and were left licking their wounds after suffering a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Hawks. The game against Chicago on Monday wasn’t played with any emotion. That element is not expected to be missing from tonight’s contest.

Minnesota captain Marcus Foligno returns from his two-game suspension after he kneed Adam Lowry in the head during the last match. Michael Russo of The Athletic had this quote from Jordan Greenway on Monday “It’s going to be fun. We owe ‘em. They better be ready.”.

Neal Pionk was unable to play on Monday since he couldn’t enter Canada and was placed on non-roster covid status. This might seem confusing given he was in covid protocol, got out, was able to travel to the United States to play the two games this past weekend but since the 14th was day 10 he couldn’t return until yesterday. It is anticipated that he will return and the question is will the Jets pull Logan Stanley from the lineup or Ville Heinola?

Skate news:

As per Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet it will be Connor Hellebuyck starting in net. As expected the toss up for the sixth D man spot was between Ville Heinola and Logan Stanley and Wieber added that Stanley left the ice with the rest and appears to be in the lineup tnt. Lastly he adds that Austin Poganski will replace Evgeny Svechnikov.

Lineup news:

Jets interim head coach Dave Lowry confirms that Logan Stanley will play tonight.  Will have to wait and see what pairs look like at warm up skate.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Dubois-Perfetti
Stastny-Scheifele-Wheeler
Copp-Lowry-Reichel
Harkins-Toninato-Poganski

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-Schmidt

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Player media availability:

Coach media availability:

Topics:

1) Keeping Stanley in over Heinola
2) What did he like about Stanley’s game?
3) Was he surprised at how good Stanley was last game?
4) What does he like about Austin Poganski?
5) How much has Poganski’s game grown?
6) What does he emphasis for tonight’s game?
7) Importance of having emotion in the game.
8) Having joy in the day to day.
9) Using 11/7 vs 12/6.
10) Potential full house tonight and how impactful has it been not being at full capacity?
11) Getting the 4th line minutes.

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 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).