Winnipeg Jets Practice Report

The Jets hit the ice today in Raleigh as they get set to take on the Hurricanes tomorrow night.  Carolina has stormed (surged) into third spot in the Metropolitan Division having gone 8-1-1 in their last 10 games.  They are very good at PNC Arena with a sterling 18-10-4 record this season.  This game is critical for them as they sit four back of 2nd place Washington but are also tied with the Penguins/Habs (in the wild card spot) in points.

With the Jets coming off a 5-2 loss to the Lightning on Tuesday night you can expect a good tilt between these two squads.  Winnipeg will get a boost with the return of Adam Lowry from his two-game suspension.

Practice News:

According to Mitchell Clinton of Jets TV the players are on the ice but Bryan Little and Adam Lowry are not.  As per Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun injured Dman Joe Morrow skated at the end of today’s practice.  Ken also provides the line rushes and D pairs.

Line rushes & D pairs:

Laine-Scheifele-Wheeler
Connor-Hayes-Ehlers
Perreault-Copp-Tanev
Lindholm-Hendricks-Roslovic

Beaulieu-Trouba
Chiarot-Niku
Kulikov-Myers

Audio:

Laurent Brossoit

Connor Hellebuyck

Coach Maurice:  Update on Lowry/Little.  Reflections on the Tampa game.  Updates on Morrow/Byfuglien.  Making sure the Jets are ready for the Hurricanes.  Who starts tomorrow?  Did he see Rod Brind’Amour as a coach?  More on Brind’Amour.  Happy to see the success this season in Carolina?  His thoughts on the Storm Surge?  On Brossoit facing those quirky losses, would he like to see a rule change?  Should goalies who come into a game get a warm up?

Audio courtesy of TSN 1290 Winnipeg.

Health News:

With Adam Lowry and Bryan Little missing from today’s skate Jets coach Paul Maurice was asked about their status “We’re expecting both of them to be available.  Won’t know more until tomorrow.”  Asked specifically about Lowry “he wasn’t feeling great today” and when asked about the bug the team was dealing with earlier in the season added “It started early November and its pretty much maintained its hold moving around.  We’ve had a bunch of guys with it and playing with it. We’re careful with it but we’ve got enough guys to play.”

Coach Maurice confirmed that Dustin Byfuglien didn’t skate today and when asked about him returning at the end of this week indicated “I don’t know. He skated the other day briefly after so I don’t want to say plateaued but it may be great tomorrow, we’ll see.  It’s going to take some time.”

Up Next:

The Jets play the Hurricanes tomorrow night at 6:30 pm to in game three of this four-game road trip. Be sure to keep it locked to illegalcurve.com for the AM Papers which go live at 7 AM followed by our pre-game report at 10:30 AM.