Heinola had worked his way into the conversation of being on the Jets roster when they begin the season in Calgary. Now Heinola will start his recovery at home as the team will send him back to Finland.
“No sense of him sitting around here for that long of time so that first couple of weeks is better being surrounded by his family,” said Bowness.
“And when we need him to come back when it’s close to start working out then we’ll bring him back. But for now, go be with your family.”
So now the Jets continue on and Friday’s skate saw Nate Schmidt step in beside Brendan Dillon, a pairing we’ve seen many times since the two blueliners came to Winnipeg back in the summer of 2021. Is there a good chance that will be the team’s third defence pairing next Wednesday against the Flames?
“Well, that’s probably a good possibility. Is it written in stone? No, nothing is written in stone. But he’s a veteran. He knows how to play; we know what we got in him and it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t get him into more games. But again injuries, him, Chissy (Declan Chisholm),” said Bowness.
“All these injuries are setting everything back a little bit. So, you deal with it the best you can. Now it’s up to us and him to make sure, now that he’s finally back out practicing with the guys and can compete and get into the battle drills going, we can push him really hard our next couple of practices to make sure he’s ready to go Wednesday night.”
As for Schmidt, he’s happy to be close to being 100 per cent and reuniting with a friend in Dillon.
“I think it’s something where when you have that familiarity with somebody, it makes it a lot easier to come back in your first game,” said Schmidt.
“Especially your first real skate with the team away from the non-contact jersey. We both love to chatter a lot, so it makes it easier for us to talk to each other out there.”
