Jets getting healthy at the right time

WINNIPEG – Taking a look around the rink at hockey for all centre this morning it was a relief to see that Rick Bowness had a full group of players for the first time in what must have felt like forever.

The Jets had yesterday off after a loss to Calgary and after practice, Bowness had nothing negative to report.

“The good news is that the guys that were feeling poorly the last couple of days, you know they weren’t 100 per cent out there today, they worked their way through it, and they all felt better at the end of practice,” said Bowness.

“So, getting the lungs back and getting some energy back is huge. I think they felt better after practice than before so I guess that would be the positive.”

Tomorrow night’s preseason finale will have an extra bit of importance for the Jets with everyone trying to find their game. The contest against the Flames the other night wasn’t a fair measuring stick for where the Jets are as a group this deep into training camp.

“It’s the preseason, we are trying to get ready to go. But neither team looked good in Calgary. We had a bunch of guys sick, a bunch of guys out of the lineup. So, I think it’s about individuals trying to get themselves ready to go,” said Josh Morrissey.

“At this point, we’ve got one game left for everyone to sort of tune up a little bit and hopefully play with a full lineup or close to what an opening night lineup would look like.”

It was encouraging to see the Jets top line of Mark Scheifele, Gabe Vilardi and Kyle Connor back together again as they have only played the one preseason game together so far.

The challenge ahead for the Jets is keeping everyone healthy for when the season starts a week from today in Calgary. Injuries and illnesses have prevented the Jets from getting a good look at what they have throughout training camp.

“It’s definitely been a different camp. Personally speaking, it feels like I haven’t played in forever. Obviously, I got sick, and you know we got one more game tomorrow and then I think three days of practice and then its ready to go,” said Connor.

“So, no excuse but it does seem like it’s been different in terms of not seeing a lot of guys to in a lot of ways. It’s been a split camp, so you had that beginning part where you didn’t see a lot of guys so it’s just different. Every camps different, has a different feel but I don’t think it’s good or bad, but we’ll find out.”

Here is a look at the lines and D pairings from the skate this morning:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi

Niederreiter-Perfetti-Ehlers

Iafallo-Lowry-Appleton

Barron-Kupari-Namestnikov

Jonsson-Fjallby-Gustafsson-Ford

Morrissey-DeMelo

Samberg-Pionk

Dillon-Heinola

Stanley-Schmidt

Chisholm

Nikolaj Ehlers was once again a full participant in practice, but Bowness still wasn’t committing to whether or not the Danish forward would get into his first preseason game. At this time, it sounds like Ehlers will be a game time decision against Ottawa.

“We’ll see what he feels like in the morning. If it’s not 100 per cent than he’s going to have to make that call not us. I mean he knows what he feels, we don’t. He knows where he is and we don’t want a setback,” said Bowness.

“I would love for him to show up and say ‘Bones, I want to play’, I’d love to hear that.”

Ehlers did take part of the power play work along with the usual customers for the Jets man advantage. Obviously with the inability to have everyone on the ice at the same time throughout camp, it will be a challenge to get the man advantage up to speed before they drop the puck for real next Wednesday.

“You can kind of point to anything, it’s been a challenge, power play, systems, lines you know but today I thought it was a really good workday,” said Connor.

“Any chance we can get to work on that power play, kind of get some live simulation with the (penalty) killers there, couple of neutral zone regroups too and we will get a good test tomorrow. I know that Ottawa is bringing a pretty good squad so I’m excited to play, kind of test that out and get the legs back a little too.”