Game 69: Winnipeg Jets vs Vancouver Canucks pre-game report

It’s a milestone night for Jets 2015 1st rounder Kyle Connor who is set to play his 600th game in the NHL this evening in Vancouver. Of course his team, which have won five of their last six games, will be focused on earning another two points so they can get to the 100 point mark and continue to push for top spot in the Central/West/NHL.

They face a Canucks team that are 5-5-0 in their last 10 games including a 3-1 loss to Utah on Sunday. After finishing the 2023-24 campaign with 50 wins and 109 points this year’s version have just 31 wins and 73 points with just 15 games to go. Suffice it to say it has been a very disappointing season out on the west coast. They are barely holding on to the final wild card spot sitting in a tie with the Blues (although they do hold a game in hand) with both Calgary and Utah two points back (and the Flames have two games in hand on them).

It all adds up to a team that is in dire need of points to salvage their year. They don’t score very much (52 less goals than Winnipeg) and they give up quite a bit (44 more than the Jets). They have the 16th ranked power play and the 4th ranked penalty kill.

Skate news:

No changes expected as per Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press from today’s optional.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

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

Morrissey – DeMelo
Samberg – Schenn
Fleury – Miller

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Canucks projected lines & D pairs:

Höglander – Pettersson – DeBrusk
Joshua – Suter – Garland
Boeser – Blueger – Sherwood
O’Connor – Aman – Lekkerimäki

Hughes – Hronek
Petterson – Myers
Forbort – Mancini

Lankinen
Silovs

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 9 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 11:40 PM CDT as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.