GAMEDAY: Jets at Oilers

EDMONTON -As he gets set for his fourth game back from his positive COVID-19 test, Tucker Poolman finally feels closer to the player he wants to be.
He played in the season opener then missed the next 11 games as he recovered, and in each game since, his ice time has gradually crept up.
In Monday's win, he played 19:25. That was higher than his previous season high from Jan. 14 (18:53).
"I'm feeling better and I'm getting my legs under me a little more," said Poolman, who is back with his familiar partner on the blue line - Josh Morrissey.
"My game has progressed in certain areas where I'm making reads better, I'm getting up the ice better, every part of my game has improved a little bit," said Poolman. "I think that's helped playing with Josh. Josh is able to know my game better and play off me a little bit better."

Head coach Paul Maurice has noticed Poolman's confidence. In his first couple games back, Maurice noted the 27-year-old keeping his shifts real short, for obvious reasons.
Now he thinks Poolman can build off Monday night in tonight's rematch with the Edmonton Oilers.
"He looked right on. As soon as that happened, he and Josh started to be really effective," said Maurice. "That takes pressure off Charlie Huddy in terms of making sure Forbort and Pionk are on the ice when their dangerous players are out there. It's really important to our team that he's able to build from where he's at and keep going."
The Jets (9-5-1) will ice the same line-up tonight as they did on Monday. Both Nate Thompson and Pierre-Luc Dubois took part in the morning skate, but Maurice said the Jets are being cautious with both forwards.
"Nate is very close to playing. I liked the way our fourth line played, that buys Nate a few more days to really push himself," Maurice said.
"Pierre-Luc skated, he's feeling better. I want to make sure we're only dealing with this once… We're not going to want him to play significantly injured. We want to get him pretty close to healthy before he comes back in."
Winnipeg's line-up is expected to look like this:
Copp-Scheifele-Wheeler
Connor-Stastny-Ehlers
Perreault-Lowry-Appleton
Vesalainen-Harkins-Lewis
Morrissey-Poolman
Forbort-Pionk
Beaulieu-DeMelo
Despite the 6-5 win on Monday, there are certain areas Andrew Copp wants to see his team improve in tonight.
He felt Monday's game turned into too much of a track meet for Winnipeg's liking.
"It needs to be puck possession in their zone. We want to make sure (Leon) Draisaitl and (Connor) McDavid are defending most of the night," said Copp. "The strength of our game has always been puck possession. That's kind of changed a little bit over the years, but the more we can make them defend and not make too many high-risk plays, the better off we're going to be."
McDavid comes into the game sitting on 499 career points, a number the Jets will do their best to hold him at.
"McDavid kind of drives that offence just from his speed and even when you have the puck in the offensive zone, you're almost making sure you're putting it deep and playing it safe," said Copp. "He's a great player, you have to be aware of him for sure, but we have to find a way to be on the puck a little bit better and be more aggressive."
At five-on-five, the Oilers (9-8-0) had 60 of the game's 99 shot attempts, including a 48-23 advantage after 40 minutes. The scoring chances were 29-11 in favour of Edmonton as well, but the Jets did well to turn the tide a bit in the third period (according to Natural Stat Trick).
The shot attempts were 16-12 in favour of Winnipeg and they also held the edge in scoring chances at 9-7.
Puck possession in the offensive zone was a big part of that, but it isn't as simple as holding onto the puck around the perimeter of the zone all game.
"Rule number one against a team as dynamic as Edmonton with the players they have is the less time they have the puck, the whole lot better you are," said Maurice. "You can possess the puck on the outside all day long for the most part, but if you don't have net traffic and you don't put the puck to the net, you're not going to generate as much as you need."
In other words, there is a time and place to try and make plays.
"Any lateral passes that aren't clean mean they're going the other way and they're going fast," said Maurice.
"We need to hang on to those pucks and if we're going to turn the thing over, or we're going to give up possession, we want to be on the right side of it."
As a team, the Jets have scored six goals in a game three times this season. Two of those have come in the last two meetings with the Oilers.
As a defenceman, Poolman is hoping his squad can tighten up a bit defensively in tonight's rematch.
"For the fans, I'm sure they enjoyed some of those games compared to maybe a 2-1 game, Poolman said. "Playing defence, you don't like to see that, but things are going to happen. You just have to, maybe not play your best, but maybe play better than the other guy."
-- Mitchell Clinton, WinnipegJets.com
Game Notes
The Jets are in the midst of playing 16 of 22 games on the road after playing 10 of 14 games at home to start the season.
Mark Scheifele is on a seven-game point streak (4G, 7A).
Nikolaj Ehlers ranks tied for third in the NHL in goals with 10 and is on a four-game point streak against the Oilers (3G, 4A).
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