Game 48: Jets vs Oilers pre-game report

The Jets slide has hit three games and they are gonna have to get things turned around on this homestand against an Oilers team they haven’t had any success against this season (2-5-0). All eyes will be on number 55 after his 2nd period benching in the game on Saturday night.  Lineup questions about given Winnipeg was off on Sunday so we will have to wait and see if Adam Lowry is ready to go and if the D rotation continues will it mean Jordie Benn returns to the lineup or possibly Ville Heinola up from the Moose?

Transaction Report:

The Jets announced that they had reassigned Dominic Toninato to the taxi squad from the Moose.

Morning skate:

As per Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet no Nikolaj Ehlers on the ice this morning and Adam Lowry is skating but in a non-contact uniform.  The lines and D pairs as well as the structure of the power play units via Ken who added that Logan Stanley stayed on for extra work which means Jordie Benn draws back in.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Copp-Scheifele-Appleton
Connor-Dubois-Wheeler
Vesalainen-Stastny-Perreault
Harkins-Thompson-Lewis

Morrissey-Poolman
Forbort-Pionk
Benn-DeMelo

Hellebuyck
Brossoit

Power play units:

PP1
Scheifele-Pionk-Wheeler
Appleton, Stastny

PP2
Connor-Morrissey-Dubois
Copp, Perreault

Players media availability:

Coach media availability:

Topics:

1) Status of Nikolaj Ehlers?
2) Nature of the conversation between him and Mark Scheifele post-benching?
3) The balancing of the lines.
4) When did the injury to Ehlers occur?
5) Status of Adam Lowry.
6) The adversity the team is facing.
7) Does the offense need to get to being more straight line?
8) On a player disagreeing with the coach.
9) Putting Jordie Benn back into the lineup.
10) Handling player relationships now vs 20 years ago.

Injury news:

Some big news this morning as Nikolaj Ehlers is done for the regular season although head coach Paul Maurice said he is “confident and hopeful” that his dynamic winger will be back for the playoffs.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 8:00 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 head coach Paul Maurice.  You can also join us afterwards for our post-game show here (be sure to smash that like/subscribe button).