Game 81: Jets vs. Flames pre-game report

The Jets and Flames do battle tonight as Winnipeg looks to tune things up for the playoffs while Calgary is looking to put an end to a disappointing season.  Jets come into the game the hottest team in the league in the last ten games (9-0-1) while the Flames are dealing with the opposite problem (2-8-0).  Winnipeg had been excellent against the Pacific division this year going 17-4-2 to date.

An interesting tidbit gleaned from the Jets pre-game notes is that Winnipeg hasn’t had a regulation loss in April since April 7th, 2014 going 16-0-2 since that contest.

With all the players that were out of the Jets lineup on Tuesday night in Montreal the expectation is that all will draw back into the lineup but we will have to see what happens at Bell MTS Place this morning to get a fuller picture of how the Jets made be assembled for tonight’s game.

Morning skate notes:

Scott Billeck of NHLcom indicates that Connor Hellebuyck was the first goalie off the ice. The projected lineup below is via Brian Munz of TSN 1290 Winnipeg.

Projected Jets lines, D pairs and goalies:

Connor-Scheifele-Wheeler
Ehlers-Stastny-Laine
Perreault-Little-Armia
Copp-Lowry-Roslovic

Morrissey-Trouba
Morrow-Byfuglien
Chiarot-Myers

Hellebuyck
Mason

Extra: Tanev, Matthias, Poolman, Dano, Niku and Comrie
Injured:  Hendricks, Enstrom, Kulikov

Audio:

Nikolaj Ehlers

Josh Morrissey

Tyler Myers

Coach Maurice:  On convincing guys to sit out a game.  Update on Enstrom/Kulikov.  Maintaining focus over the last month.  Worried about the number of shots they are giving up on the penalty kill?  Maturity of Josh Morrissey’s game.  Insight into tonight’s lineup.  Finding ways to get wins even if they aren’t bringing their best game.  On Hellebuyck getting a chance to break the record for most wins by a U.S. goalie in a season.  What did he see in Sami Niku from the game in Montreal and what does he see in him as a prospect?  Has Hellebuyck asked to play both games?

Audio courtesy of TSN 1290 Winnipeg

Health Updates:

Coach Maurice was asked about his two injured defenders in Dmitry Kulikov and Tobias Enstrom and whether they would be ready for game 1 of the playoffs.  “Kulikov won’t be.  He is still aways away.  Toby we’ll make a decision early part of this week of ice time, when to put him on the ice, where he’s at.  The doctors still have the final say on that one.  So I don’t have anything cleaner than that for you.”.