Game 75: Jets vs. Predators pre-game report

The Jets kick off the final regular season homestand against division rival Nashville tonight in a battle for 1st place.

Morning Skate:

Some lineup changes according to Brian Munz of TSN 1290 Winnipeg with Laine heading to the second line and Ehlers going up to the first.  Matt Hendricks draws back in for Jack Roslovic and Nathan Beaulieu returns after missing a game and Joe Morrow comes out.

Jets projected lineup:

Ehlers – Scheifele – Wheeler
Connor – Hayes – Laine
Tanev-Lowry-Little
Hendricks – Copp – Perreault

Beaulieu – Trouba
Kulikov – Myers
Chiarot – Niku

Hellebuyck
Comrie

Audio:

Matt Hendricks

Nikolaj Ehlers

Coach Maurice:  Update on Brossoit?  Did he have a plan for his goalies this week? Update on Byfuglien/Morrissey?  Putting Ehlers with Scheifele/Wheeler.  How much longer does he want to tinker with his lineup?  On inserting Hendricks for Roslovic.  What does Roslovic have to show him to be a regular in the lineup?  On the importance of tonight’s game.  On the offensive weapons from players like Patrik Laine/Kyle Connor early in their careers.  On the top line allowing guys to find their games.

Audio courtesy of TSN 1290 Winnipeg.

Health News:

Coach Maurice was asked about Laurent Brossoit and indicated “So better news off a test yesterday, we’ll just list him as day-to-day and hope it’s not too long.”  He was also asked for an update on Dustin Byfuglien and Josh Morrissey and said “Both skated today.  Buff’s been on the ice since Wednesday.  The way this works now is he skates, if he feels real good the next day, he’ll start thinking about morning skates going forward and start building toward contact.  Josh is still aways from that, that contact part of it, but he’s back full on skating now.  Josh is upper-body he won’t come off the ice now, he’ll be back as a full skater, we’ll get him in a gold here in the near future.”  Asked which is closer to return coach Maurice added it is Byfuglien.  He doesn’t want to push Morrissey too quickly.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 6:00 pm CDT.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action which includes post-game audio from the Jets room as well as from coach Maurice.