GAMEDAY: Oilers at Jets (Preseason Game 2)

WINNIPEG - The Jets will play their first home game of the preseason at Canada Life Centre when they close out a home and home with the Edmonton Oilers at 7 pm CT tonight.

Winnipeg won 2-1 in a shootout in Edmonton on Sunday night with Collin Delia making 36 saves in his Jets debut and he ended up stopping all three shots he faced in the shootout. Dominic Toninato scored the lone goal in regulation for Winnipeg and Cole Perfetti recorded the winning goal in the shootout.

As expected, it was a sloppy affair in Edmonton with it being the first game of the new campaign and with a completely different group playing tonight, it could be more of the same, at least in the first period.

“There were times last night where we could have moved the puck a lot quicker and gone on the attack and we were just too slow moving. That’s timing, that’s reads. Getting into some games, so you don’t overreact to that,” Rick Bowness said this morning.

“But if we do spend less time (in the D-zone), we’ll handle that a lot better. The biggest thing for us tonight is ‘where did we go wrong last night?’ We just hung onto the puck too long or (were) too soft in our zone. We’ll address those things tonight and again; it’s not going to be a perfect game tonight. It’s going to be scrambly, but we’ll get through it.”

Here is a look at the projected lineup for this evenings game with the Oilers as shown from line rushes at the morning skate at hockey for all centre:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi

Barron-Kupari-Namestnikov

Ford-Gustafsson-Viel

Torgersson-Lucius-Reichel

Morrissey-Salomonsson

Samberg-Pionk

Stanley-Capobianco

Brossoit

DiVincentiis

Josh Morrissey has been paired with the Jets 2022 second round pick, Elias Salomonsson since the start of camp and says that the young Swede has been asking a lot of questions and has been open to direction. Salomonsson will be playing in his first NHL game tonight against the Oilers.

“We ran through a lot of system stuff to sort of through days two and three so just kind of little things like trying to help him understand the positioning and then just a couple of questions. But he looks great, and I think it’s just NHL habits that you get as you’re here longer and as you play in the league,” said Morrissey.

“You know, pass the puck really hard, do everything with pace, things happen faster at this level than younger levels so just be ready to move it and kind of don’t get too casual. Those are just some of the things that I feel every young defenceman, when they come in, have to kind of get used too but he’s been great, and it will be fun to play together in a real game.”

Morrissey said playing the role of mentor has made things come full circle from the days when he entered the NHL and Zack Bogosian and Dustin Byfuglien guided him.

“I think the biggest message coming into camp especially is you can pick up some little things, but I think the most you do is pick up from watching a guy. Just make them feel comfortable, try to have them play with confidence. You’re going to make mistakes that’s the game,” said Morrissey.

“Every defenceman in the history of the game has made mistakes and especially as a young guy, that’s part of learning so just go out there, make the mistake, kind of on your toes going full speed with confidence as opposed to sitting back and trying to play a perfect game is impossible to do so I think that’s more of what it is. Just trying to make those guys have that confidence, just play your game and play on your toes with an aggressive mindset, I guess.”

Playing aggressive will be important tonight in the second preseason as Bowness wants the Jets to continue getting to the place where they are a hard team to play against. It seemed like they got to that place at times in the third period in Edmonton.

“There were times that we went up and it looked like we were going to apply pressure and then some of the kids got a little nervous and they backed off,” said Bowness.

“So now they’re coming at us. The initial thought was the right one. ‘Ok, let’s get after it and put pressure on them and let’s take away their time and space and then ‘oh, oh, they might make a play’ so they backed up. We’ve got to get everyone through that phase.”

Puck drop from Canada Life Centre is 7 pm CT.