Winnipeg Jets associate coach Scott Arniel with a health update on Gabriel Vilardi

It was widely reported that on a separate sheet of ice from where the Jets were skating injured Winnipeg forward Gabriel Vilardi was skating on his own.

He’s been out since the October 17th game against the Kings when it was later revealed he had suffered a sprained MCL injury. At that time head coach Rick Bowness indicated it would be 4-6 weeks for his recovery.

On the last Jets road trip Vilardi was on the plane with the guys to Vegas so folks wondered if he might be skating which associate coach Scott Arniel confirmed he wouldn’t be skating during that road trip at the beginning of November.

On the 9th Arniel confirmed that Vilardi was skating on his own as he had been waiting on a brace which he got.

Which brings us to today where, as indicated above, he was skating on his own. Of course this elicited a question as to how close he is to joining the group.

Associate coach Scott Arniel indicated:

“There’s talk of maybe when we get on the Tampa trip of him getting into our practice. That’ll be the big thing. Getting accustomed to the pace, just sort of the feel of that. Obviously his conditioning is a big part of it now. He’ll go into, probably, an off colour jersey for a few practices and then kinda see how it is with all of his teammates and kinda running into people a little bit and then we’ll go from there.”

The game against the Lightning in Tampa is on November 22nd.