Game 66: Jets vs Panthers pre-game report

The Jets spent Friday in Florida which saw them practice during the day and then watching their opponents for tonight defeat the Blackhawks 4-3 in OT last night. Those were an important two points for a Panthers club that are now just two back of the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.

We learned from coach Bowness that the team is not expecting centre Pierre-Luc Dubois for either tonight’s game or tomorrow’s against the Lightning.

Skate news:

As per Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet it is an optional morning skate although he confirmed that Connor Hellebuyck is going through his starting routine.

These are the lines and D pairs based on yesterday’s practice.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Niederreiter
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Wheeler
Barron-Lowry-Appleton
Maenalanen-Stenlund-Gustafsson

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-Schmidt

Hellebuyck
Ritich

Betway Odds:

Despite having played last night the home team are favoured by the odds makers. Florida has been a very good team at home going 19-10-3 at FLA Live Arena (which I thought was the BB&T Center until I wrote this preview). They’ve won three straight games as former Jets coach Paul Maurice tries to push his new club into the playoff picture at the expense of his old team. Be sure to check out the latest game day odds from Betway.

Players media availability:

Coach media availability:

Topics:

1) What were his thoughts on the Panther/Hawks game last night?
2) Both teams hungry for a win tonight (:48)
3) Controlling their own destiny (1:21)
4) Going up against Matthew Tkachuk (1:47)
5) Breaking the Florida cycle (2:22)
6) What he is seeing from his lines (2:52)
7) Whether Pierre-Luc Dubois is in concussion protocol (3:37)

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 6:00 pm CST.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action which includes post-game interviews from Jets players as well as from head coach Rick Bowness.

You can also join us afterwards for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show (be sure to smash that like/subscribe button). This season you’ll have a chance to win great schwag including authentic Jets jerseys, hats, etc after every single game (For a variety of ways to enter click here).