Winnipeg Jets vs Vancouver Canucks

Invest a few minutes of your time and listen to Craig Button rant and rave about the Winnipeg Jets on TSN1290 Friday afternoon.

Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun has a great article which looks at the state of the Winnipeg Jets in respect to their architect/ general manager.

The Winnipeg Jets ended a short two game road trip thru California with a 3-1 loss against the Anaheim Ducks.

In watching the recording of the broadcast, one thing that kinda ruffled my feathers that I’d like to share with you...

TSN’s Dennis Beyak was talking about the Anaheim Ducks and how this is the 10th anniversary of their Stanley Cup win, and then he went on to list several current Duck’s ages...Corey Perry is this, Ryan Getzlaf is that, Antoinne Vermette, Patrick Eaves, so on and so on...all of which are in their early 30’s.

Then Beyak said “time is running out on these guys as they’d like to take another Cup run”, referring to the Ducks.

Beyak doesn’t mention any Jets’ players during this.

Time is also running out on Blake Wheeler, Bryan Little, Toby Enstrom. I would imagine they’d like to make their first cup run, let alone a second.

Today’s opponents are the Vancouver Canucks, who are coming off a matinee 4-2 road win against the Minnesota Wild yesterday afternoon.

NHL.com

Where: MTS Center, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Who: Winnipeg Jets (33-35-7 for 73 pts) vs Vancouver Canucks (30-35-9 for 69 pts)

When: 7:00 pm CST

How: TSN 1290, SN, TSN 1040

Projected Lineups:

Winnipeg Jets:

Mathieu Perreault - Mark Scheifele - Blake Wheeler

Nikolaj Ehlers - Bryan Little- Patrik Laine

Andrew Copp - Adam Lowry - Brandon Tanev

Joel Armia - Nic Petan - Chris Thorburn

Julian Melchiori- Jacob Trouba

Brian Strait - Josh Morrissey

Mark Stuart - Nelson Nogier

Jacob Trouba

Connor Hellebuyck

Micheal Hutchinson

*Dustin Byfuglien was a scratch after warmup against the Ducks on Friday night. It was mentioned during the TV broadcast that the team may shut him down for the year.

*Enstrom (UBI), Myers (LBI), Pavelec (LBI), Postma (LBI), Matthias (UBI), Chariot (UBI), Dano (UBI/LBI).

Vancouver Canucks:

Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Micheal Chaput

Sven Baertschi - Bo Horvat - Brock Boeser

Jack Skille* - Brandon Sutter - Nikolay Goldobin

Joe Labate - Drew Shore - Reid Boucher

Alex Elder - Troy Stecher

Luca Sbisa - Chris Tanev

Ben Hutton - Nikita Tryamkin

Ryan Miller

Jakob Markstrom

*Jack Skille was injured during yesterday’s game, so it’s unclear who the Canucks will put in the line up to replace him.

Keys to the game:

Winnipeg Jets: No. More. Penalties.

Vancouver Canucks: One player a re-build doesn’t make.

3 Questions:

1. Has Hellebuyck finally solidified the #1 goaltender position? No
2. Can the Winnipeg Jets manage to stay out of the penalty box? No
3. What more can the Jets do? Changes are needed as you can’t fine tune a piano with a sledgehammer.

Players to watch:

Winnipeg Jets: Nic Petan AKA Anchorman- his play immediately picked up last game when, low and behold, he was placed with Joel (Anchors Away) Armia.

Vancouver Canucks: Bruiser Brock Boeser (try and say that fast five times!)

Participants worthy of your rejection and unclean wordplay: Baertschi - Bo - Boeser

Prediction: Jets 3-2