Time: 6:00 PM CST
Channel: Sportsnet
Radio: TSN1290
Enemy Blog: Raw Charge
The Winnipeg Jets are playing one of the top teams in the league tonight; the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning have great depth with four strong lines and a defence that features Victor Hedman prominently. Furthermore, their goaltending is superb thanks to Andrei Vasilevskiy. Outside of these fairly basic reasons, there is no way to explain why the Lightning are so strong.
The Jets will have their hands full with the forward group that includes: Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Tyler Johnson, Yanni Gourde, and Ondrej Palat. The defence features the aforementioned Hedman as well as Ryan McDonagh and Brayden Coburn. The Jets will having a challenge tonight to shut multiple lines down to stop the Lightnings offence.
Meanwhile the Jets keep on switching up their forward lines just when it looks like things are working. Instead of keeping Kyle Connor with Patrik Laine and Bryan Little, they switched him with Nikolaj Ehlers again and put him back with Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler. These changes might allow for the top line to go back to producing at higher levels, but it operates on the idea that Laine will score because he is Laine and not because he is on a line that works with his playing style.
The Jets will be tough tonight, but they should be able to pull off a win if they can figure out a way to contain their offensive weapons. If they can, it will be a good game.
