Game 56: Winnipeg Jets vs Arizona Coyotes pre-game report

We learned on Saturday following a heavily attended optional skate that Jets head coach Rick Bowness would be starting Connor Hellebuyck in net and he would be replacing Logan Stanley with Nate Schmidt on the backend. Other than that he would be keeping things the same for his club who have won five of their last six games although he admitted they haven’t been as dominate at 5 on 5 as we have come to expect for most of this season.

They face an Arizona team that has lost 11 straight games (0-10-1), are a poor road team (8-15-4) and last played on Wednesday. While the Coyotes have given up 54 more goals than the Jets they do score at a similar rate to Winnipeg (168 GF)/Arizona (163), although the visitors have played one more game than the home team.

Morning Skate:

No morning skate.

Warm-up news:

No Sean Monahan as he is dealing with an illness which means Rasmus Kupari comes back into the lineup. Vlad Namestnikov moves up to centre 2nd line.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Iafallo-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Perfetti-Kupari-Barron

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt

Hellebuyck
Brossoit

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 5 pm CST.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. You can also join us afterwards for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show. (Please be sure to smash that like/subscribe button).