Game 62: Winnipeg Jets vs Seattle Kraken pre-game report

There remain plenty of question marks for the Jets as illness continues to hamper this lineup right now. A number of players were missing from the optional practice on Thursday including goalie Connor Hellebuyck who is  “under the weather a little bit so we’ll see how he’s feeling and go from there.” according to head coach Rick Bowness. One thing we know for certain is that Gabriel Vilardi will not play tonight or tomorrow night in Vancouver.

The Kraken are coming off their 4-3 win over the Jets which is part of a 7-2-1 roll as they make a late push for a playoff spot in the Pacific Division or a Wild Card spot although they remain well back of both. With this uncertainty it will be interesting to see if they make any moves that impact their current roster ahead of puck drop.

Morning Skate:

As per Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press it looks like Laurent Brossoit in net tonight.

Lineup news:

Rick Bowness confirms that Nate Schmidt returns and Logan Stanley comes out.

Warm-up news:

Kupari comes in for Gustafsson.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt

Brossoit
Hellebuyck

Health update:

The Jets bench boss indicated that Gabriel Vilardi is feeling better and he was going to “push his workouts a little bit harder today.” Said they are hopeful he will be back on the ice on Monday.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 9 PM CST.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. Reminder to join us on the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show following the final buzzer between the Jets and Kraken.