Latest on Winnipeg Jets forward Gabriel Vilardi from head coach Rick Bowness

It has certainly been an interesting 11 days since we last saw Gabriel Vilardi on the ice for the Winnipeg Jets. He didn’t finish the 3rd period of the game in Dallas on February 29th but the next day at a practice in Texas head coach Rick Bowness said he was possible for the game the next day in Raleigh, Carolina against the Hurricanes. After that game we found out that the team had instead sent Vilardi back to Winnipeg for evaluation.

On Tuesday (March 5th) after morning skate the Jets bench boss indicated that Vilardi would not play that evening against the Kraken but that he’d be on the road trip with the team as they left the next day for a weekend back-to-back against Seattle on Friday and Vancouver on Saturday.

Oddly Rick Bowness advised that Tuesday morning that he would have an update on the Friday which was three days later (as opposed to the Wednesday when they had a practice scheduled, which the team later cancelled, or Thursday when they were scheduled to practice in Washington State). On the Thursday he advised that Vilardi was ruled out and when we heard from GM Kevin Cheveldayoff on Friday after Trade Deadline it turned out that Vilardi had stayed in Winnipeg and that the plan was for him to skate on Monday.

Now part of me wonders if this (Tuesday to Friday timeline for an update) was simply subterfuge from the Jets to insulate themselves from having the price of a potential acquisition artificially increased ahead of the Trade Deadline.

Today after morning skate head coach Rick Bowness was asked about Vilardi, who wasn’t on the ice with his teammates as they got set to face the Capitals tonight in Winnipeg to kick off three straight games at home and whether he skated this morning.

“No. We’re not sure when he’s going to skate.”

Asked if this means he’s had a setback he replied:

“No. I say that, it could be tomorrow. Could be Wednesday, Thursday. Let’s say we hope he skates this week.”

Asked if once he’s on the ice if that could take him some time to get up to game speed:

“We’ll have to deal with that when we see how he’s feeling and how the game’s going. We’ll fill that in when we get there.”

Which translates to not a lot of clarity on the status of the top line winger for Winnipeg.