This will be a shorter preview than usual as I'm day-to-day with an Upper Body Injury. My apologies.
The Jets are in action for their second game in as many night as the boys find there way to Sunrise, Florida to take on their bitter rivals the Florida Panthers. I haven't checked, but I'm sure there are plenty of good tickets available.
The Jets are coming off a 2-1 OT win over another Southeast Division rival in the Tampa Bay Lightning, as Kyle Wellwood sealed the deal in overtime to give the Jets their second consecutive road W.
The Panthers last played on Wednesday against Washington, who had played the Bolts the night before as well, and beat them 4-2.
If the Jets can continue to get strong performances out of guys like Wheeler, Fehr and Little they should be able to hang tough with anybody. Ondrej Pavelec also put togother a string of dominant performances recently that has given the Jets a chance to stay in the playoff picture.
A good way to stay in the picture is to pull within a point of division leaders tonight, and hand them a loss on home ice at the same time.
Yea…sounds like a plan
Keys to the Game, Player Numbers and Lineups for your reading pleasure after THE JUMP
Keys to the Game:
- Outscore the opposition
- Avoid stupid penalties (looking at you Laddy)
- Weather the storm. This would be a more suitable analogy if we were playing the Hurricanes, but the point I’m getting at is the Jets need to stay fresh for the whole game, despite playing last night. Taking the third period off again is not an option.
- Bryan Little will finally shake off the snake bite and score an actual goal.
- Hopefully Buff can put in another 25 minute performance like last night, but I have my doubts.
Lineups
Jets (GP 52 24-22-6 54 PTS)
Forwards
#16 Andrew Ladd — #18 Bryan Little — #26 Blake Wheeler
#17 Eric Fehr — #80 Nik Antropov — #13 Kyle Wellwood
#15 Tanner Glass — #19 Jim Slater — #22 Chris Thorburn
#20 Antti Miettinen — #21 Aaron Gagnon — #8 Alexander Burmistrov
Defencemen
#39 Tobias Enstrom — #33 Dustin Byfuglien
#6 Ron Hainsey — #4 Zach Bogosian
#29 Johnny Oduya — #5 Mark Stuart
Goaltender
#50 Chris Mason
Hopefully the Stone Mason can lead the boys to victory to claim their first W in the second half of a back to back this year.
Panthers (GP 49 23-15-11 57 PTS)
Forwards
#32 Kris Versteeg — #9 Stephen Weiss — #14 Tomas Fleischmann
#20 Sean Bergenheim — #57 Marcel Goc — #26 Mikael Samuelsson
#82 Tomas Kopecky — #18 Shawn Matthias — #13 Mike Santorelli
#21 Krys Barch — #10 John Madden — #22 Matt Bradley
Defencemen
#43 Mike Weaver — #52 Jason Garrison
#44 Erik Gudbranson — #51 Brian Campbell
#23 Tyson Strachan — #4 Keaton Ellerby
Goaltender
#30 Scott Clemmensen
Last time Clemmensen was the only thing keeping the Jets from victory. We shall overcome that obstacle this time around! I hope!
Player to boo mercilessly: Kris Versteeg keeps putting up the points against us. It's ridiculous.
Prediction: Winnipeg 4-2 Florida. Yea…we're doing this. Monkey = off the back. It's happening. Break out the sandwiches!
