Game 66: Winnipeg Jets vs Anaheim Ducks pre-game report

The Jets held a short skate on Thursday as they worked on getting back to basics and working the kinks out of their game. We learned from head coach Rick Bowness that Laurent Brossoit would be getting the start, that he was hopeful Mark Scheifele would play and that he expected Vlad Namestnikov to play as he skipped practice yesterday after taking a shot off his foot in the loss to the Preds on Wednesday.

The Ducks were in action last night in St. Paul where they were shutout by the Wild 2-0. That’s four straight losses for Anaheim who have gone 3-6-1 in their last ten games. They’ve been a slightly better road team (13-17-1) than a home team (10-23-1) but that’s damning with faint praise. They’ve got a dazzling goal differential of -69 scoring the third least amount of goals in the Western Conference and allowing the second most against.

Morning Skate:

Mark Scheifele and Vlad Namestnikov, who both missed yesterday’s practice, were on the ice for the optional.

In total 12 players skated. Including the above two also on the ice were Cole Perfetti, David Gustafsson, Nikolaj Ehlers, Rasmus Kupari, Morgan Barron up front and on the backend Nate Schmidt, Colin Miller, Logan Stanley, Dylan Samberg and Brenden Dillon.

Warm-up news:

Some ch. ch, changes for the Jets this evening. Mark Scheifele, David Gustafsson, Nate Schmidt and Logan Stanley on the ice for Jets warm-up. Not skating are Rasmus Kupari, Cole Perfetti, Colin Miller and Dylan Samberg.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo
Ehlers-Monahan-Toffoli
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Gustafsson-Namestnikov

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-Schmidt

Brossoit
Hellebuyck

Players media:

Coach media:

Topics:

1) Describing the Ducks.
2) What is he looking for from his club to control the game? (:57)
3) Update on Gabriel Vilardi? (1:44)
4) Configuration of the top line (2:45)
5) Was the upper-body injury the spleen issue for Vilardi? (3:19)
6) How much does he feel for Vilardi? (3:43)
7) Can he tell how frustrated Vilardi is? (4:09)
8) Mark Scheifele is good to go? (4:20)

Health news:

Jets head coach Rick Bowness says Gabriel Vilardi is out with enlarged spleen and he said there was no timetable for his return.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7 PM CDT.  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 Ducks.