After two days of practicing in Winnipeg the Jets are ready to take on the Stars tonight in a big divisional contest. While the home team sit eight points up on their rivals from Texas the folks from Big D have two games in hand which makes tonight’s game an important two points for either team.
For the Jets the big question marks the last two days is the health of Neal Pionk and Nikolaj Ehlers as both players have missed the skates the last two days. Head coach Scott Arniel was not giving up anything on the status of these two at yesterday’s media availability other than to tell us to be at the arena for morning skate.
Meanwhile the Stars are without Miro Heiskanen, Nils Lundkvist and Tyler Seguin as the trio are all on IR. And those are just the guys on injured reserve. As per Sam Nestler who covers the Stars “Lian Bichsel woke up feeling a bit under the weather. They are not sure if he will travel” and Roope Hintz is skating today to see if he will meet the team in Colorado (where they play after Winnipeg).
These two teams are very similar when you look at the standings. Winnipeg averages 3.48 goals per game while Dallas is at 3.45. The Jets give up on average 2.31 goals per game while the Stars are slightly more at 2.59. Both teams are good at home and on the road. Special teams we see some separation as the Jets remain the best PP in the NHL while the Stars are 15th and when it comes to penalty killing it’s the exact opposite as Dallas are top in the NHL while Winnipeg sit 15th. Odd but true.
Skate news:
Nikolaj Ehlers on the ice but Neal Pionk is not as morning skate gets underway.
Jets projected lines & D pairs:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Perfetti
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Tanev-Barron-Iafallo
Morrissey-DeMelo
Sambergy-Schenn
Fleury – Miller
Hellebuyck
Comrie
Stars projected lines & D pairs:
Robertson – Duchene – Granlund
Benn – Johnston – Rantanen
Marchment – Bourque – Dadonov
Bäck – Steel – Blackwell
Harley – Lyubushkin
Lindell – Ceci
Smith – Dumba
Oettinger
DeSmith
As per Sam Nestler who covers the Stars.
Players media availability:
Coach media availability:
Health news:
Jets coach Scott Arniel says Neal Pionk is out week-to-week.
Special Edition of Illegal Curve:
Up Next:
Join us for a live show at Cityplace starting at 12 noon (or join us on our YouTube stream here) as we preview the game. Puck drop is at 7 PM CDT. 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 CDT as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.
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