Jets news:
Tim Stapleton scored a beauty of a goal today in the KHL. It was his 23rd goal in 49 games to go along with 14 assists for the Chicago, Illinois native:
Illegal Curve: Coach Noel audio as team leaves for Florida this morning. Making changes to his lineup? Team taking penalties, reversion to last season’s tendencies or anomaly? Mark Scheifele watch continues. Thoughts on getting Zach Redmond into lineup? Does Jokinen need to be shooting more? Talking about the Florida Panthers. Jets poor start to games.
Winnipeg Free Press: Noel still assessing lineup after road game loss. The big question mark appears to be what can be done with Mark Scheifele? These next two games against Florida and Tampa are critical and the Jets coach will have to decide if he wants to tinker with his lineup.
CBC: Jets struggle in first of three on the road. While it was less than an ideal start to the road trip, coach Noel will be sure to put his troops through some hard drills as they make up for their numerous mistakes in last night’s contest. Article goes on to talk about Mark Scheifele and play of Tobias Enstrom.
Winnipeg Free Press: Discipline an issue in loss to the Montreal Canadiens. The woes of the penalty kill were exposed last night. The Jets had escaped this for the most part this season as they had avoided taking a lot of penalties but they could not escape the zebras last night.
Winnipeg Free Press: Noel laments costly mistakes. You could see it in his prickly post-game interview that he was not a happy camper with the effort his team put forth.
Winnipeg Sun: Burned by bad habits. I would hate to be in the room when coach Noel got done with his troops. He could not have been happy with the effort the team put forth last night. Despite temporarily taking the lead the Jets did not play a complete 60 minutes and it cost them. Paul also focuses on Antropov’s goal, Thorburn’s mistake, Pavelec’s posts, Scheifele watch and a coaching theory.
Winnipeg Sun: Perry Pearn on the defensive in Montreal. Pearn was quite funny when he was talking to the Montreal media yesterday. Especially when he said he was nervous around the 5 or 6 game mark (although technically he was, in fact, let go after 7 games last season by Montreal).
Illegal Curve: Jets on a Deadline – Canadiens 4 Jets 3. Game recaps, video highlights and the NHL.com 3 Stars of the night.
NHL news:
CBC: Ex-NHLPA boss calls Quebec City, Toronto expansion spots. Former head of the NHLPA Paul Kelly confirms that the NHL would like to see the league sitting at 32 teams. The NHLPA might be happy with another 50 new members and just think of the added revenue another Toronto area team would bring.
Toronto Star: Markham arena risky proposition without guarantee of NHL team. The Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri is an example of a successful arena that is run without a major anchor tenant (unless you consider the Kansas City Command of the Arena Football League a major tenant). As the above article suggests, the NHL is clearly interested in continuing to mine the GTA region but without a new arena this obviously will never take place.
Grantland: Who has the best goalie mask in hockey this season? The mask art of goaltenders is really an interesting story. Many personalize it with references to family or some event. Jets fans will recall Chris Mason’s Iron Maiden mask (a look he continued in Nashville), Chris Carrozzi’s Puffin mask, Mark Dekanich’s Happy Bombs mask, Al Montoya’s Big Cubano mask and Ondrej Pavelec continues the air force theme on his mask.
Globe and Mail: Is Canada’s hockey obsession getting out of hand? If being obsessed with hockey is wrong, I don’t want to know what is right.
Play of the Night:
Guess who is back for the 2nd night in a row making a highlight reel save… the Dallas Stars Kari Lehtonen. This time he robs the Detroit Red Wings Valtteri Filppula.
