Winnipeg Jets Practice Report

The Jets are riding a two-game win streak after last night’s 4-2 defeat of the Stars.  The Jets appear to be locked into second spot in the Central sitting eight points back of Nashville and seven ahead of Minnesota.

Likely won’t see Jacob Trouba at today’s skate and we will have to wait until after practice ends to hear the assessment from coach Maurice.

Practice notes:

As per Jamie Thomas of Jets TV it appears to be an optional practice for Winnipeg.  Sara Orlesky of TSN fills out the missing players as: Hellebuyck, Morrissey, Trouba, Byfuglien, Enstrom, Little, Wheeler, Stastny.

Audio:

Patrik Laine

Andrew Copp

Coach Maurice:  Status of Jacob Trouba.  What has Joe Morrow done well?  Any further updates?  Is Trouba in concussion protocol?  No other injuries for Trouba being looked at?  On the move of Little to win and Copp to centre and whether it might be a longer term thing?  Is anything bothering Little that is precluding him from taking faceoffs? Is it a tough sell to move Little to wing?  On the Jets PK decision making.  On special teams in the playoffs.  What was the impetus for the structural change to the PK?  On the role of discipline.  On Jets D and who comes in for Trouba.  How has Laine evolved?  More on Laine.  Does anything still surprise him about Laine’s game?

Audio courtesy of TSN 1290 Winnipeg.

Health Updates:

Jets defenceman Jacob Trouba was rocked by a massive collision with Stars captain Jamie Benn early in the 3rd period of last night’s game against the Dallas Stars.  Today coach Maurice provided an update of sorts: “Nothing yet.  He is going to see some specialists here today.  Other than he was feeling pretty darn good when he came in, which tells you nothing in these situations.  So we need to get a few days on him, better to feel good than not, but it will take a few days before we understand the extent of it.”  Asked whether this was a positive “Ya, like I said he’ll see the specialist today and they’ll give us a good idea of where we’re at today.  It’s usually two or three days before you find out which direction it goes, whether it is going to be longer term.  Not always but it’s happened in the past.  So, like I said we’ll get a diagnosis later today and then we’ll move forward.”

Another interesting development was an update with respect to defenceman Dmitry Kulikov.  Kulikov was slated to have back surgery today which would have meant he was out for eight weeks at which time coach Maurice would have provided an update.  Instead the Jets bench boss announced today this about Kulikov “He’s going to forgo surgery, there are other remedies with this.  He didn’t have surgery today.  We’re probably looking at instead of eight weeks to the first update we’re probably looking at four weeks now to the first update on where he’s at, three to four weeks and hopefully everything settles down, heals and he’s a player for us sooner.”