Game 66: Winnipeg Jets vs New York Rangers pre-game report

Both the Jets and Rangers who will conclude their season series this evening in Winnipeg are in need of points in tonight’s game. While the desperate team is the one from New York as they find themselves out of the playoffs (two points back of the second wild card spot) they take on a Winnipeg team that needs to keep putting ground (or at least not giving up any ground) to a hard-charging Dallas squad who are just six points back of them with a game in hand.

For the Jets we know via head coach Scott Arniel on Monday that he plans to get newly acquired Luke Schenn into the lineup this evening after the rugged defenceman joined the team on the ice for an optional skate although the bench boss wasn’t prepared to say who was coming out. Given the game that Logan Stanley played in Carolina seems like he will come out for Haydn Fleury but we will have to wait and see what morning skate brings.

It’s been 50 games since Winnipeg played in New York and it has not been an easy season for the team from the Empire State. At that time (which admittedly was only 16 games into the season) they had the best PK in the entire NHL and the 6th best PP. The penalty kill remains very good at 3rd best in the league although the power play has dropped off tremendously all the way down to 24th.

Skate news:

The Jets third pairing of Haydn Fleury and Luke Schenn taking a spin at morning skate as Winnipeg prepares for New York.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey-DeMelo
Sambergy-Pionk
Fleury – Schenn

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Rangers projected lines & D pairs:

Panarin – Trocheck – Lafrenière
Cuylle – Miller – Zibanejad
Kreider – Carrick – Kaliyev
Othmann – Brodzinski – Rempe

Miller – Borgen
Vaakanainen – Schneider
Soucy – Jones

Shesterkin
Quick

As per Vince Z. Mercogliano of USA Today Sports this was how they were lined up this morning in Winnipeg.

Players media availability:

Coach media availability:

Topics:

1) Paying tribute to Rangers play-by-play voice Sam Rosen
2) Pairing Haydn Fleury with Luke Schenn [;30)
3) How would he rate Fleury’s performance? (1:13)
4) Knowing the type of NY team they are facing (1:46)
5) Potential for this to be a game 1 lineup? (2:29)
6) Depth of centre with Kupari, Barron & Gustafsson (3:16)
7) What does he like from Barron up the middle? (3:52)
8) Wanting to see depth pieces vs continuity of lineup? (4:21)
9) Using Ehlers with top line after a PK (5:08)
10) Benefit of having Namestnikov avoid injury (5:54)
11) Is Rasmus Kupari cleared to return? (6:30)

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7 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 9:40 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.