Game 58: Winnipeg Jets vs San Jose Sharks pre-game report

The Jets held an optional practice on Sunday following their 4-3 shootout win over the Blues on Saturday night. Connor Hellebuyck and Josh Morrissey both participated following their time off after returning from the 4 Nations tournament. The expectation is the Jets will return Kaapo Kahkonen to the Moose now that 37 is ready to resume his spot in the net with Comrie back to his familiar spot as backup. Additionally Ville Heinola likely joins Haydn Fleury as a healthy scratch with Josh Morrissey‘s return. We may also get an update on Moran Barron who was in a regular jersey for the first time as per Kelly Moore of 680 CJOB although it looks like head coach Scott Arniel didn’t speak so perhaps we will get an update today. Suspect they will want him to get into some heavier practice before they consider returning him to the lineup.

When these two teams last met 25 games ago in San Jose the Jets had the top power play in the entire NHL and the 21st ranked PK. They remain the league’s best PP and their PK has improved seven spots to tied for 14th. The last two months have not nearly been as kind to the Pacific dwelling Sharks who dropped from having the 23rd ranked PP to 26th and the 11th ranked PK to 23rd, which is quite the drop.

The disparity in goals for and goals against is also rather stark as you might expect from the top team in the league vs the bottom team. Winnipeg has scored 58 more goals than San Jose and they’ve given up 82 less goals against (with the visitors having played one more game). San Jose was in Calgary yesterday where they dropped their first game following the 4 Nations break by a final score of 3-2.

Skate news:

Despite Morgan Barron being in a regular jersey he isn’t gonna be playing this evening which was expected.

And as expected the lines and D pairs are as projected.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Stanley-Miller

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Sharks projected lines & D pairs:

Eklund- Celebrini – Toffoli
Zetterlund – Wennberg – Smith
Graf – Sturm – Kunin
Goodrow – Dellandrea – Duehr

Walman – Thurn
Ferraro – Thompson
Vlasic – Mukhamadullin

Vanecek
Georgiev

The D pairs have been adjusted as per Bay Area news reporter Curtis Pashelka.

Players media availability:

Coach media availability:

Topics:
1) Playing their game regardless of opponent
2) How different are the Sharks from last time they played? (:29)
3) What the trio of 4 Nations Jets bring to the team for home stretch (1:29)
4) Does he sense they’ve added something to their game from the tournament? (2:37)
5) Is Adam Lowry ok after leaving skate early? (3:16)
6) Status of Morgan Barron (3:24)
7) Vlad Namestnikov signing an extension (3:40)
8) Elements of the Jets game matching the high levels from 4 Nations (4:44)
9) Wearing the ‘wanting to be in Winnipeg’ as badge of pride (5:49)
10) Dylan Samberg handling extra responsibility without 44 (7:30)
11) Trade deadline acquisitions like Niederreiter & Namestnikov (8:10)

Health update:

Looks like Morgan Barron, who is in a regular jersey again, is close to returning to the lineup as per head coach Scott Arniel. He’s been out since end of January in a game against the Habs.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 6:30PM 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 9:10 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.