Game 65: Winnipeg Jets vs Carolina Hurricanes pre-game report

The Jets are back in business today after taking Saturday off following their 6-1 shellacking of the Devils along with NHL Trade Deadline on Friday. The moves they made saw Brandon Tanev return to the team he last played for back in 2018-19. He played in the game in Jersey. Luke Schenn is meeting the team in Winnipeg and is expected to be with them on Monday. Many pundits were pillaring Winnipeg for not matching big moves made by division rival Colorado and Dallas although despite wanting to declare ‘winners and losers’ the fact is we will not know in which category this team falls until the playoffs conclude.

These two teams met just ten games ago (back on February 4th) which saw backup goalie Eric Comrie put forward a strong effort in a 3-0 win over the Hurricanes. Carolina comes into the game having won three straight (5-5-0 in last ten). They can’t really catch Washington who are 12 points up but they’ve also got a good lead on the Devils (six points ahead with a game in hand). They’ve been a Jekyll and Hyde team when you consider their home vs road splits going 24-7-1 at PNC Arena but just 13-15-3.

This game pits strength vs strength when it comes to the special teams battle. Winnipeg features the top power play in the entire NHL (5 PPG in six opportunites) against the second penalty kill in the league (they slipped one spot since the teams last met). Conversely neither team boasts a particularly strong PP/PK where the other does. Since that last meeting the Jets penalty kill is up one spot to 15th overall while the Hurricanes power play has dropped four places to 25th overall.

Skate news:

No morning skate since it’s an early start time.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Sambergy-Pionk
Stanley-Miller

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Hurricanes projected lines & D pairs:

Svechnikov – Aho – Stankoven
Martinook – Staal – Jarvis
Hall – Kotkaniemi – Blake
Robinson – Jankowski – Roslovic

Slavin – Burns
Gostisbehere – Chatfield
Walker – Morrow

Andersen

Coach’s comments:

To follow.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 4 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 6:40 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.