"Nathan's a guy over the last few years of his career who's kind of come in on those one and two year deals. This is his livelihood, and he's selling that, his willingness to do that is clearly on display," said Maurice.
"He'll drop the gloves to stand up for a teammate, he's not getting out of the lane of a shot, and the price he paid for that is injuries that impact him personally. And then he's still willing to do that. So there would be a really good example of why we value his character and the importance of him in our room. He's not going to generate a lot of offence but he's a valuable piece of what we do."
The Jets finished Tuesday's game with five defencemen, which drove Josh Morrissey up to a season-high 29 minutes.
Dylan DeMelo played 17:51, the most he's played since Feb. 21.
"Tough injury there for Nate. He's a guy that's a heart-and-soul player for our team," said DeMelo. "We had some guys step up and have great games. (Josh Morrissey) played close to 30 minutes, he was a catalyst for us on the back end and (Neal Pionk) gets three assists, which was huge. Everybody just kind of stepped up their game on the back end and everybody was kind of playing with everybody, everybody was pretty interchangeable."
Winnipeg will be back to six defenceman on Thursday, the second of three consecutive games against the North Division leading Maple Leafs.
As of Wednesday's optional practice, Maurice and his staff hadn't quite decided on whether it would be Sami Niku or Logan Stanley coming into the line-up.
"It may mean that we're going to have to get some penalty killing out of that guy," said Maurice. "You've seen it for as long you've covered the team, we're usually five or six guys deep in terms of injuries on any given night. We consider ourselves fortunate to be at Game 25 and not have had to battle through that much this year."
Whether it's Niku or Stanley, the Jets want to improve their play inside their own blue line. Winnipeg gave up 16 high-danger chances at five-on-five (according to Natural Stat Trick), which led to Connor Hellebuyck making a number of big stops in the third period to preserve the lead.
"We have to work as a unit of five, starting with the defencemen and the centres down low in the corners, then the wingers helping us out when stuff breaks down in the middle," said Pionk. "We start in the slot, limit the chances in the slot, then push it to the outside and go from there."
