Winnipeg Jets Practice Report

The Jets took Saturday off but are back on the ice today for practice as they get set for their playoff series against the Oilers which starts in Edmonton on Wednesday. Lots of injury question marks surrounding this team including Andrew Copp, Tucker Poolman, Nikolaj Ehlers as well as Paul Stastny and Pierre-Luc Dubois who didn’t finish the game on Friday night.

Skate news:

As per Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet forward Andrew Copp and Nikolaj Ehlers are skating in a non-contact uniform however he also reports that neither Paul Stastny or Pierre-Luc Dubois are taking part this morning.  Ken lays out the lines and D pairs at skate below.

Lines and D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Wheeler
Perreault-Lowry-Appleton
Vesalainen-Thompson-Lewis
Harkins-Toninato-Dano

Morrissey-DeMelo
Forbort-Pionk
Heinola-Poolman
Stanley-Benn

Hellebuyck
Brossoit

Player availability:

Coach availability:

Topics:

1) Any lineup news?
2) What has past experience prepared him for this series?
3) How much does Connor Hellebuyck’s ‘belief in self’ impact team?
4) How much of a difference maker could Nikolaj Ehlers have on series?
5) How much emphasis does he put on the regular season?
6) What were some of the differences in the close games?
7) What opens up when they get good reloads?
8) Did McDavid put up points that seem inconceivable in modern NHL?
9) Does it not really just come down to the goalies?
10) Dumping the puck in on Mike Smith with how he handles it.

Up next:

The Jets schedule for the week isn’t out but you can expect another couple of days of practice before they leave on Tuesday for Alberta. Be sure to keep it locked to illegalcurve.com for the AM Papers which go live at 7 AM CT on Monday.