Time: 6:00 PM CST
Channel: Sportsnet West, Sportsnet 360, City TV
Radio: CJOB
The Winnipeg Jets and Florida Panthers are playing tonight on Hockey Night in Canada against their former head coach Paul Maurice. The Panthers started the season off poorly, but they have started to turn it around. The Jets had turned it around for a couple of games, but they struggled in their last game against the Minnesota Wild where Connor Hellebuyck struggled a bit.
The Jets are playing tomorrow against the Tampa Bay Lightning. It makes sense to save Hellebuyck for the Lightning. David Rittich should get the start tonight because the Panthers are the easier game. However they are third in the Wild Card rankings in the Eastern Conference. They have been led by Matthew Tkachuk who is leading scoring by close to 30 points although he has played over 10 games over Alexander Barkov.
The Jets will have their normal crew of players with not a lot of injuries anymore outside of some players not practicing, but being okay to play. They will once again be looking at unlocking their offensive talent like they did earlier in the season. However, according to Arctic Ice Hockey Alumni Garret Hohl the Jets were on a bit of a PDO bender at the time meaning the team was scoring on more shots than normal and getting a few more saves than normal. Both those numbers regressed and while it is likely this is a minor issue with Hellebuyck, shooting percentage can take forever to regress to the mean. The Jets could be in for a painful end of the season.
