Winnipeg Jets Practice Report

The luxury of time between games is about to go away for the Jets but for now they have the luxury of a second consecutive day of practice in Winnipeg.

Pre-skate news:

Jets bench boss Rick Bowness indicated on Tuesday that if Nikolaj Ehlers came in today feeling like he did yesterday then he’d hit the ice for a skate. Ehlers must have been feeling good because Mitchell Clinton of JetsTV confirmed that 27 was on the ice about an hour before practice got underway.

Pre-skate injury news:

There wasn’t an update on Mason Appleton during the media availability with coach on Tuesday but today ahead of practice Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun broke the news that the Wisconsin product would require surgery for his upper-body injury and be out eight weeks.

Skate news:

After not being on the ice for main practice yesterday, goalie Connor Hellebuyck is back with the group for practice as is Dylan DeMelo who didn’t skate on Tuesday as per Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun. He also provides the lines and D pairs below.

Lines and D pairs:

Connor-Scheifele-Gagner
Perfetti-Dubois-Wheeler
Jonsson-Fjallby Lowry Eyssimont
Toninato-Gustafsson-Manaelanan
(Harkins rotating in)

Morrissey-Pionk
Schmidt-Dillon
Samberg-DeMelo
(Capobianco rotating in)

Player media availability:

Coach media availability:

Topics:

1) Status of Mason Appleton.
2) Why is Sam Gagner a good replacement on top line? (:58)
3) Who replaces Appleton on the PK? (1:31)
4) Nikolaj Ehlers on the ice today (1:53)
5) What does he like about Mikey Eyssimont’s game? (2:14)
6) Sam Gagner being a sneaky good signing (3:38)
7) Rust after a three day break (4:34)

Health updates:

The Mason Appleton report has been amended by Jets bench boss Rick Bowness to confirm that 22 had wrist surgery that will take 8-12 weeks for recovery.

With respect to Nikolaj Ehlers, who was on the ice today, the update was “We’ll see how it feels tomorrow. There’s no real status quo with him. It was a light skate and we’ll see how he feels tomorrow coming in. Really that’s all I can tell you. It’s day-to-day with him now until we decide what is the next step to take.”

New contest:

We are midway through November and you still have plenty of chances to win authentic Jets jerseys, hats and shirts. But you cannot win if you do not enter so be sure to get your entries here.

Up next:

The Jets take on the Ducks tomorrow night (7 PM) in Winnipeg.  Be sure start your morning with the Morning Papers which go live at 7 AM, stick with us throughout the day for the latest news and then after the game be part of the conversation on the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show after the Jets/Ducks contest.