The day began with the Moose hitting the ice at 10 AM at the hockey for all centre. And there were a lot of Moose on the ice all at once. Looked like all 33 guys are present but no chance I was gonna be able to count them all (can’t count that high). I did see Nikita Chibrikov on the ice as well as the four who got returned by the Jets (Lambert, Toninato, Sautner & Malott).
Photo Credit: Dave Minuk (Illegal Curve)
The Manitoba Moose were running a Minnesota Moose line of Chaz Lucius, Dominic Toninato and C.J. Suess. They also had Brad Lambert alongside Nikita Chibrikov and Jeff Malott.
I just wanted to clarify that it is fully at the Jets discretion if prospect Elias Salomonsson (2022 2nd rounder) stays in North America. I had said I thought it might require negotiations between his Swedish club Skelleftea and Winnipeg. It doesn’t as he’s fulfilled his obligations. Now we wait and see.
Over on the Jets side it was busy as well when they got started at 10:30 AM as Winnipeg had gotten back some players dealing with illness or injury:
Ill: Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Gabe Vilardi, Morgan Barron
Inj: Nate Schmidt, Nikolaj Ehlers & Declan Chisholm
On the IR rink: Kyle Capobianco and Henri Nikkanen
The only player missing was Jeffrey Viel. Turned out that was because he placed on waivers by the Jets for purposes of assignment to the Moose.
The lines and D pairs were as follows:
Connor – Scheifele – Vilardi
Ehlers – Perefetti – Niederreiter
Iafallo – Lowry – Appleton
Barron – Kupari – Namestnikov
Jonsson-Fjallby – Gustafsson – Ford
Morrissey – DeMelo
Samberg – Pionk
Dillon – Heinola
Stanley – Schmidt
Extra: Chisholm
Speaking of the waiver wire turned out the Sharks put former Jets draft pick Leon Gawanke, who left the Jets/Moose organization to sign in the DEL before he was dealt to San Jose this summer by Winnipeg. He was flipped for left-shot Dman Artemi Kniasev who is currently down with the Moose.
And speaking of former Jets players one announced his retirement as Anthony Bitetto took to his instagram to announce he was hanging up his skates. The New York product spent the 2019-20 season in Winnipeg playing 51 games for the Jets that year.
After practice we spoke with Josh Morrissey (watch here), Kyle Connor (watch here) and last up was bench boss Rick Bowness.
Bowness seemed quite pleased to finally have a full lineup back on the ice although he was cautious to label Nikolaj Ehlers as a “game-time decision” tomorrow instead saying it would be up to the dynamic winger to let them know if he’s ready to return against the Senators tomorrow night.
It’s worth noting the Jets released their roster late in the afternoon which didn’t include Ehlers but I suspect that is subject to change and if the winger wants to play then I suspect Bowness will have him in the lineup.
Morning skate is at 10 AM. Puck drop is tomorrow at 7 PM for the final exhibition game of the pre-season.
