Newest Jets ready to face former team

WINNIPEG – It’s a little too early to start judging the trade that the Winnipeg Jets made with the Los Angeles Kings back in June.

Two games in, Gabe Vilardi (1A), Alex Iafallo (1G) and Rasmus Kupari (1A) have all recorded a point with their new team.

Tomorrow night, their former team, the Kings will be at Canada Life Centre along with former Jet Pierre-Luc Dubois.  

“L.A.'s a pretty nice place to play. But they're finding out that Winnipeg's a pretty good place to play, as well,” said Jets head coach Rick Bowness following practice on Monday.

“All three of them have fit in tremendously well. They're all wonderful, wonderful teammates that work very hard. And they're all really good players. And you know I love the fact that they all want to be right here.”

Considering the Jets and Kings are facing one another only a week into the new season, at least the trio didn’t have to wait long to play their former team.

“It’s a good thing. I haven’t seen them in a bit,” said Alex Iafallo.

“It’s obvious business on the ice. But there will be a couple jokes here and there. It’ll be a fun game.”

Los Angeles will be coming in looking for their first win of the season after they lost in overtime to Carolina on Saturday. You can bet the coaches and players will be asking Vilardi, Iafallo and Kupari for some inside information the Jets can use to their advantage Tuesday night.

“I mean, yeah, I think so, for sure, definitely. Just playing the opposite way around and just kind of reading off of what I would do if I was in the situation, they’re in,” said Vilardi.

“There’s a lot of their system, the 1-3-1 there, it’s a lot of automatic plays — I don’t want to say robotic — but it’s just reads you’ve got to make, and we’ll see. Obviously, I know what they’re doing a lot of the time, but it’s still hockey and there’s a lot of reacting and plays that aren’t scripted.”

The lines and defence pairings remain unchanged from Saturday’s win over Florida at practice this morning:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi

Namestnikov-Perfetti-Ehlers

Iafallo-Lowry-Appleton

Barron-Kupari-Namestnikov

Gustafsson

Morrissey-DeMelo

Samberg-Pionk

Dillon-Schmidt

Stanley-Chisholm

Hellebuyck

Brossoit

All four lines have looked the same without the puck which is something Bowness has been harping on since he arrived at the start of last season. The fourth line of Morgan Barron, Vladislav Namestnikov and Kupari have looked really good chipping in a goal in the win over the Panthers.

“We're all pretty smart players. We can all fill the centre role or be along the boards or be the low forward or D-to-D, whatever it takes. All of us (have) some skills. We can score goals like we did last game but also be pretty solid in the D-zone,” said Kupari.

“Yeah, just getting in on the forecheck. Myself, using my speed. We're all good skaters as well so just getting in on the forecheck and, like that one goal, get the puck back and create chances off of it.”

NO HARD FEELINGS

After playing almost 200 regular season games in a Jets jersey, Pierre-Luc Dubois comes back to Winnipeg for the first time, and he is in search of his first point as a King.

The Jets coach was asked about his relationship with Dubois, and he made it clear he had no problems with the 25-year-old forward.

“I talked to him an awful lot, spent a lot of time with him. I was trying to convince him to stay, but that wasn't going to happen no matter what,” said Bowness.

“I have no problem with Dubie at all. I think we had a very good rapport.”