The Kings come to Winnipeg for the final meeting between the two teams this season. They played last night in St. Paul and managed to get a 4-3 OT win vs the Wild doing the Jets a small favour by holding the Wild to only a point. Now they can do a bigger favour by rolling over and paying dead tonight at Bell MTS Centre.
The Jets will be without Jacob Trouba as he was reviewed by a specialist today and told he had a concussion. That's from the department of obvious. Trouba came out of the wrong side of hit on Sunday night and when he tried to get up his legs were gone, think Bambi on ice. Protocol is that players wait seven days and then reviewed again based on signs of recuperation from the injury. Needless to say it's a set back for the Jets blue line.
In other news Dmytri Kulikov has not opted for surgery for his back ailment and will try to heal on his own. The logic here being that healing on own could take as little as 4 weeks and there was no assurance surgery would help anymore than time. Also adding surgery would increase the time to heal and if it's necessary why not try in the summer. If it works the Jets could have Kulikov back by the end of April and that would be a nice addition.
Eric Comrie gets the start tonight vs the Kings. He was lit up in Florida in his only other start this season and it's a good chance for the young goalie to get another shot at the NHL level. As Maurice said though it's as much about giving Hellebuyck nearly 3 days of playing rest and almost 4 of mental rest something that has been in short supply for the goalie.
Patrik Laine and Alex Ovechkin are tied in the Richard trophy race and Laine is also riding a 15-game point streak the longest by a teenager in NHL history. Is there anything more the team can ask of Laine? Perhaps just to keep scoring goals.
Not sure if anyone else has notice this but has Mathieu Perreault gone cold for some time? Actually that's not a question it's a fact and Perreault has not registered a point since February 18th when he had 1 goal and 2 assists vs Florida. Ten games without a point is odd for some one of Perreault's ability and while it might sound troubling his line mates since then have done not much either with Little and Roslovic having total of 10 points between them. 30 combined games with 10 points to show for it from three players is not good enough and not for that level of skill.
While Roslovic sat last game and Armia played up with Perreault and Little it's worth watching how Maurice treats this line as it should get more production that than and perhaps that group needs a bit of a shake up. Since Feb 18th the trio has looked like this:
CF% 41.32% HDCF% 30% GF/60 3.42 GA/60 .48 in 87 minutes of 5 vs 5 TOI.
If they are going to be used in a defensive manner and it appears they might be then they may have embraced that role but with Lowry coming back and the ability to run the 17-9-13 and their destructive forechecking attack it would be nice to see more offence from the Perreault, Little ?? line.
Expect Morrow or Chiarot in tonight as the deck chairs keep shuffling on he blue line. Also expect a desperate LA team, much like Dallas was as they try to hold onto or keep space in a Wild Card position.