Game 81: Winnipeg Jets vs Seattle Kraken pre-game report

The Jets practiced on Monday where we learned that Nino Niederreiter is most likely set to return as the player said he is ready to go while his coach hedged a bit wanting to ensure his player was feeling good again today. Provided he does return the expectation is that David Gustafsson, who had one goal and two assists in the two games he played during the absence of 62, will come out of the lineup.

After two excellent games to end their road trip, which saw Winnipeg defeat Dallas 3-0 and Colorado 7-0, they will be looking to continue that consistent 60-minute effort they put forth against their Central division rivals, in the last two games of the regular season which starts tonight against Seattle.

The Kraken do not score very much (bottom five in the West) but conversely they don’t allow a lot of goals against (top five in the West). They come into tonight’s game on a three game slide with an a road record of 16-16-7.

Morning Skate:

Only change at morning skate was that Nino Niederretier replaced David Gustafsson on the third line as expected.

Connor Hellebuyck doing his starting routine.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Ehlers-Monahan-Toffoli
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Namestnikov-Iafallo

Morrissey-Pionk
Dillon-DeMelo
Stanley-Samberg

Hellebuyck
Brossoit

Player interviews:

Coach interview:

Topics:

1) Connor Hellebuyck starts?
2) Nino Niederreiter returns?
3) Having a healthy lineup (:18)
4) So many guys skating today (:56)
5) All for one, one for all mindset including healthy scratches (1:24)
6) What he’s expecting from the Kraken (2:53)
7) How did he get to the Stanley-Samberg pairing? (3:45)
8) Did the last two games solidify things given quality of opponent? (5:09)

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 7 PM CDT.  Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. Reminder to join us on the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show following the final buzzer between the Jets and Kraken.