WINNIPEG – After spending the first eight days of training camp in two big groups, Sunday marked the first time that the number of players on the roster was low enough to require just one.
But head coach Scott Arniel made sure that one group got right back up to pace after Saturday’s off day.
“I wanted to ramp up what we were doing,” said Arniel.
“I wanted to try and take the compete level up like it’s a game. Guys are getting reps with each other and it was a lot of what I was looking for.”
The 75-minute skate contained large segments of five-on-five, four-on-four, and three-on-three play, with the latter two being parts of the game the Jets haven’t had much time to work on early in camp.
Winnipeg’s next game isn’t until Wednesday when they host the Calgary Flames in the second last preseason game on the calendar.
“We have a few days here to really focus and hone in on all our power play, penalty kill, all our systems for everyone,” said Dylan Samberg.
“Usually a guy like myself, I don’t get to see a lot of four-on-four or three-on-three, so it’s fun to play in that. It’s good for a lot of guys that don’t get an opportunity to play in a moment like that, if something were to happen, they’re able to do that if need be.”
The full line rushes, with some rotation going on due to uneven numbers of forwards and deffencemen, looked like this:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Iafallo
Gustafsson-Toninato-Jonsson-Fjallby
Anderson-Dolan-Lambert-Chibrikov/Shaw
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Salomonsson-Miller
Fleury-Coghlan
Kuzmin-Bauer
Lundmark
Earlier in the day, Winnipeg assigned three players (Daniel Torgersson, Parker Ford, and Domenic DiVincentiis) to the Manitoba Moose, and also loaned Brayden Yager and Colby Barlow to their junior teams.
The exclamation mark on Yager’s camp was his goal in the preseason loss to the Minnesota Wild on Friday night as well as his on-ice skills session with Mark Scheifele after practice early in the week.
“Yages was complimentary of Scheif and the stuff he helped him with,” said Arniel. “He has potential. He’s another guy. Go back to junior - I don’t know what kind of team he’s going to have - but same as Barlow, get a chance to go play World Juniors, go dominate, be that elite player, and let things move forward from there.”
As for Barlow, this was the 19-year-old’s first true camp with the Jets. The 2023 first-round pick was sick for all of last September’s training camp.
“He recognized there is a whole different level of pace,” said Arniel. “He got to play in the American League last year when he came up with the Moose and learned a bit then. The hard part is when you go back you take your foot off the pedal and kind of relax. He needs to make sure that every day is a learning day for him, a growth day, whether that’s in the weight room or on the ice.
“Try to make sure he’s gaining as much as possible in learning experiences through this coming season so when we see him next year, he’ll be one year older, more experienced, and a little bit longer down the line.”
SUNDAY TRADITIONS
The talk in the room over the last couple days – especially around the golf enthusiasts like Dylan Samberg - has surrounded the Presidents Cup and the back-and-forth nature of this year’s event, hosted in Montreal.
While the singles matches on Sunday will determine whether the United States or the International team takes home the prize, Samberg says another sport will be getting a lot of screen time on Sunday.
Football.
Specifically, the Minnesota Vikings against Mason Appleton’s Green Bay Packers.
Samberg says Appleton is pretty outnumbered in the Minnesota-filled Jets room.
“All the guys that like the Vikings are kind of poking him a bit this morning,” Samberg grinned, before doing an impression of the Vikings Gjallarhorn.
“Skol Vikings!”
