Game 62: Winnipeg Jets vs New York Islanders pre-game report

A big group of Jets players hit the ice on Monday for an optional practice in Winnipeg as they prepared for four games on the road starting tonight in New York against the Islanders. While the group isn’t happy that they’ve gone 0-1-1 after winning 11 straight you got the sense from the players that spoke that they know that the final stretch will involve hockey that is quite a bit tighter. As pointed out by Kelly Moore of 680 CJOB six of the last eight games the Jets have played were one goal games while two of the 18 prior to that were one goal affairs. That’s quite the disparity.

The Islanders were in action last night taking on the Rangers which was a game they lost 4-0 to their state rival. It was a game they could ill afford to lose as the team from Long Island sit five points back of the second wild card spot. They’ve gone 4-6-0 in their last ten games and the vultures are circling as folks around the NHL try to determine if this group will sell ahead of the March 7th Trade Deadline. Perhaps this game decides that fate!

Things haven’t radically changed since these two clubs faced off six games ago. They don’t score very much but they also don’t give up a ton of goals either. Of course since they used Ilya Sorokin last night in MSG we don’t know if they’ll use him again or Jakub Skarek, a 2018 third rounder who has played two NHL games to date. As per Ethan Sears who covers the team for the Post they ran 11/7 yesterday against the Rangers.

Skate news:

No Dylan Samberg as per Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Stanley-Pionk
Fleury-Miller

Hellebuyck

Islanders projected lines & D pairs:

Lee-Horvat-Pageau
Holmstrom-Nelson-Palmieri
Tsyplakov-Cizikas-Fasching
MacLean-Gatcomb

Romanov-Dobson
Pelech-Dobson
Boqvist-Pulock
Mayfield

Skarek
Sorokin

The lines and D pairs are via Ethan Sears who covers the Islanders for NY Post.

Coach’s comments:

As per Murat Ates of The Athletic Winnipeg, Jets bench boss Scott Arniel indicated that Samberg is dealing with a family issue and will miss the game tonight. He is expected to return Thursday against the Flyers.

Up Next:

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