The Jets are on the ice for a second straight day of practice although they’ve traded in hockey for all centre in Winnipeg for the Amalie Arena in Tampa.
Skate news:
As per Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press the lines have returned to normal in Tampa today after Vlad Namestnikov and Morgan Barron took a maintenance day yesterday in Winnipeg. He did add that Gabriel Vilardi, who is possible to play this road trip, “took a few spins with the fourth line during some 5-on-5 work”
Lines & D Pairs:
Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Gustafsson-AJF
Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt
Toninato-Stanley
Hellebuyck
Brossoit
Gabe Vilardi takes some contact:
As Gabriel Vilardi works his way back into the lineup one of the things he’ll need to do is take contact. Of course when wearing the non-contact uniform you generally are supposed to be “non-contact”. Sounds like there was some according to radio colour broadcaster for the Jets Mitchell Clinton who asked associate coach Scott Arniel if the contact between big D man Brenden Dillon and Vilardi at practice was accidental?
“No actually Gabe wanted to kinda get a little bit of bumping around a little bit just to get a feel for stuff. I don’t know if he was expecting Dilly to hit him. Half the team didn’t know that, thought maybe Dilly was colourblind and didn’t see the yellow jersey. At the end of the day Gabe’s getting close and that was something he kinda wanted a little bit.”
Goalie plan:
Associate coach Scott Arniel was asked by Ken about whether he might ride Connor Hellebuyck during this road trip as the games are spread out.
“We’re not sure yet cause we got Dallas when we get home and Edmonton so we got five big ones here so we’ll just obviously worry tonight, see where we’re at and we’ll just go game to game here, kinda figure where we are.”
Up next:
The Jets will face the Lightning in Tampa as they kick off the three-game road trip against the Lightning. Don’t forget to join us after the game on the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show.
