It was another day of training camp at the hockey for all centre with Winnipeg consolidating their camp groups into one with last night’s news that they had reduced the roster by 10 and then the news this morning that they placed five guys on waivers for assignment to the Moose of the AHL.
This leaves 35 players at Jets training camp.
The hope of the coaching staff was that they could dress a mostly veteran lineup for the final two games of camp being tomorrow in Calgary against the Flames and Thursday in Winnipeg against the Senators.
Yesterday there was no Kyle Connor or Gabe Vilardi as it turned out both players were dealing with illness. As per Murat Ates of The Athletic Winnipeg neither player was on the ice again today. Rick Bowness said on Saturday that if neither skated on Sunday it would diminish their likelihood of playing against the Flames on Monday.
Following skate the Jets bench boss was asked by Kelly Moore of 680 CJOB if the fact neither was present for skate ensured the likelihood of them playing in Calgary as pretty slim. He replied:
“It’s 100% guaranteed they won’t be playing.”
He added this about Nikolaj Ehlers:
“Nik won’t be playing either unfortunately. We’d love to see him play but he’s not ready to play. So it’s as simple as that.”
When asked for clarity as to who made the call about Ehlers not playing tomorrow night he said:
“It’s more him. He’s still feeling it a little bit. So until he’s 100% he’s not going to play. But it’s more him, that’s not the trainers pulling him, he’s telling the trainers how he feels. He still feels something so we’re not going to run the risk of furthering that injury.”
Also Kelly tweeted that Nate Schmidt remains in a yellow, non-contact jersey so he is clearly not likely an option for tomorrow’s game.
