Winnipeg Jets Morning Papers (Wednesday, Mar 14th)

Jets news:

TSN:  Jets continue fight for playoff spot.  While Winnipeg has been off since last Friday, the MTS Centre has not seen game action since March 5th, so you can expect a party atmosphere tonight as Peggers’ get their Jets fix.

Winnipeg Free Press:  Road woes in rear-view mirror.  Doesn’t matter how good the Jets are at home, if this team cannot win the majority of the 7 games remaining on the road, their chances to make it to the playoffs will be nil.

Winnipeg Free Press:  Players ok with safety changes if the sport doesn’t suffer.  Most of the Jets players offered up an opinion or two about the proposed rule changes.

Winnipeg Sun:  Little goes long way.  The young gun from Oil town has speed to burn and as coach Noel said yesterday, seems to use that even more when he is “going”.

Winnipeg Sun:  Trying to flip the switch.  The players can talk about it until they are blue in the face, but while they might suggest that there is no need to change their intensity level, clearly the home crowd pushes them to a different level of play than we see on the road.

Winnipeg Sun:  Jets fans show Calgarians the way.  A former Pegger’ takes note of the enthusiasm Jets fans brought to cow-town last week.

Winnipeg Sun:  News and Notes.  Banged-up Bogo still no go for Jets.  No concussion epidemic.  Familiar faces on the Stars.  Dallas local links.

Illegal Curve:  Jets player audio.  Ron Hainsey, Evander Kane, Mark Stuart, Bryan Little, Ondrej Pavelec and Blake Wheeler.

Illegal Curve:  Coach Noel press conference.  Injury update on Bogosian (remains day-to-day, may not be player for tomorrow) whereas Buff is ok.  Discussion of proposed rule changes (hybrid icing, gloving the puck, trapezoid for goalies).  Fun during practice, good time off?  Need to flip a switch and turn on the home ice advantage?  Has break been good for team?  Back to rule change discussion (coach doesn’t like no-touch icing).  Players showing enough respect for each other?  Talks about equipment in today’s game.  Bryan Little’s development.

Winnipeg Free Press:  NHL GMs examine lack of power plays.  The Jets sit 29th in the league in power play opportunities so they understand more than most the lack of penalty calls this season.

Affiliate news – St. John’s IceCaps:

TSN:  Haddad scores winning goal, Bulldogs double IceCaps.  The Newfoundland crowd cheered for the opposition goal scorer as Robert Slaney, a local scored his first AHL goal.

Next opponent news – Dallas Stars:

Dallas Morning News:  Bachman may be in goal for Stars first visit since 1996.  While the Stars might be one of the hottest teams in the league, the key stat that Jets fans can live with….the Stars are 1-9-2 in 2nd game of back-to-back.

ESPN Dallas:  Lehtonen’s second straight shutout leads Stars past Wild, 1-0.  Looks like the Jets might be dodging a bullet as the former longtime (played 5 seasons) member of the Atlanta Thrashers organization is expected to get the night off in Winnipeg.