Last week we spotted Ville Heinola and Rasmus Kupari taking part in light contact drills as the pair return from injury.
Heinola suffered an ankle injury which required surgery on October 9th and despite his being back on skates last week we were advised that he was “still a ways away” as per head coach Rick Bowness. Back on October 9th Bowness had indicated It’s going to be a minimum of eight weeks and then we’ll start addressing it again then.” That timeline expired almost two weeks ago as we enter the tenth week of recovery for the nimble defenceman.
On November 14th in a Jets game against the Devils, speedy forward Rasmus Kupari went awkwardly into the boards injuring his shoulder. As the time associate coach Scott Arniel indicated it would be 4-7 weeks and he’s right around the five week mark.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
Today at practice at Canada Life Rasmus Kupari was skating at the optional wearing a yellow, non-contact sweater.
Following head coach Rick Bowness was asked by Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press for an update on the pair:
“We would hope for after the Christmas break. He certainly is not ready to play this week but certainly after the Christmas break, we’re getting a lot closer when we get to that point.”
And anything new with Ville Heinola?
“He’s going to skate again tomorrow after the group. So he’s back. He’s skating again but he’s still a ways away.”
Asked about the challenges Heinola faces in getting back to where he was at training camp, the Jets bench boss had this to say:
“I don’t think he’s ever faced an injury like this before so we’ll see how, nobody knows how he’s going to respond. Same as Gabe when Gabe came back, he needed some games, to get the timing and conditioning. We’ll have to do the same with Ville.”
Murat Ates of the Athletic Winnipeg who asked about the mindset of Heinola followed up with a question about the Finnish defender feeling like he was on the precipice to which Bowness interjected:
“He would have been in our opening lineup”
Asked if sending Heinola to the Moose was an option he indicated:
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there but that’s an option.”
There’s the latest on the pair of injury players.
