With 53 games behind them the Jets have sat in top spot in either the NHL, the Western Conference and/or their division for months and months. Out east the Capitals have carved themselves a similarly unlikely path to the top of the Eastern Conference. This sets up quite the Saturday night matchup which features the #1 overall team in the NHL (Winnipeg) against the #2 overall club (Washington).
The Jets are winners of five straight games which have all come without their captain Adam Lowry who was lost (week to week) in the first game they ever played in Utah six games ago which may have been the worst loss of the season. Lowry was joined by Morgan Barron who is also out week to week after suffering an injury two games ago in Montreal. Undrafted college free agent signing Parker Ford made his NHL debut last game in Boston, which was an hour and a half from where he grew up in Rhode Island, and scored as Winnipeg rolled to a 6-2 win. The only lineup question for the visitors is whether they roll the same group or potentially get 2022 1st rounder Brad Lambert into the mix. Seems likely they stick with what worked against Bruins but morning skate will tell us what things will look like tonight. Speaking of Finns might tonight be a chance for Ville Heinola to get back in after being a healthy scratch for the last seven games?
Washington hit a bit of a speed bump in Ottawa falling in overtime but they’ve been cruising along going 7-2-1 in their last ten games. They’ve got at six point lead on Carolina for top spot in the East with a game in hand on the Hurricanes. They have been very good at home going 16-4-4 at Capital One Arena. While they score a lot of goals (although not quite as many as Winnipeg) they are equally stingy. They have the 10th ranked power play and the 3rd best penalty kill in the NHL.
Skate news:
As per Ken Wiebe no changes for the Jets.
Jets projected lines & D pairs:
Connor – Scheifele – Vilardi
Ehlers – Namestnikov – Perfetti
Niederreiter – Kupari – Appleton
Iafallo – Gustafsson – Ford
Morrissey – DeMelo
Samberg – Pionk
Stanley – Miller
Hellebuyck
Comrie
Capitals projected lines & D pairs:
Ovechkin – Strome – Wilson
Protas – Dubois – McMichael
Raddysh – Eller – Frank
Duhaime – Dowd – Mangiapane
Sandin – Carlson
Chychrun – Van Riemsdyk
Fehervary – Roy
Thompson / Lindgren
Coach’s comments:
To follow.
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.
