BLOG: Morrissey moves past Buff

WINNIPEG – Another game, another milestone for Winnipeg Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey.

The Calgary product moved past Dustin Byfuglien into top spot for assists by a defenceman in franchise history on Monday in the Jets 2-1 win in Calgary. Byfuglien was Morrissey’s first defence partner when he came to the NHL.

"Just so much admiration for him, so much respect for him, very thankful for his mentorship,” said Morrissey after practice at hockey for all centre on Wednesday.

“I guess, early on, and how many things I learned from him, I'm not sure I ever thought I would pass him in something, but yeah, it's pretty cool.”

Morrissey and the Jets are off to a 5-1 start to the season which must be looked upon as impressive considering they are missing Adam Lowry, Dylan Samberg and Cole Perfetti and have a bunch of new faces in the lineup.

“Yeah, I think we've talked all through training camp and the start of the year about our depth. I think we've got something that's a real strength of our organization, our team, guys that can come in and fill some big roles,” said Morrissey.

“And obviously we've got really good players out of our lineup, but if you look at our overall game, our power play, penalty kill, goaltending has been really good, and our five-on-five game, I think we have room to improve but there is still a lot of positives there.”

Not many changes to the line rushes and D pairings from what we saw in Calgary earlier in the week. Morgan Barron was not on the ice today and head coach Scott Arniel said that Barron is day-to-day.

Another impressive feat to start the campaign is that Nino Niederreiter is producing even though he has had to play with multiple centremen. Niederreiter played almost exclusively with Adam Lowry since he came to Winnipeg but has already skated with Vlad Namestnuikov and currently is with Jonathan Toews and Gustav Nyquist.

“Obviously they're new to the team, make sure we talk a lot like I mentioned and getting down the system,” said Niederreiter.

“Tell them kind of like how we do things here and how things are supposed to look like. And I think each and every game, they feel like to get better as well.”

MORE TALK ABOUT THE PK

It’s hard not to talk about the penalty kill daily considering that they haven’t given up a power play goal since opening night and sit atop the league in that department at 96.3%. No Lowry or Samberg hasn’t slowed this group down at all with Jonathan Toews, Tanner Pearson and Cole Koepke understanding how to make Dean Chynoweth’s system work.

“We tried to make sure in training camp that we got some real good reps in practice. But we also made sure we use those guys that were new that we were going to look at,” said Arniel.

“You know, Tanner Pearson, Koepke, those type of guys, get them out there and see, get them in situations where we can keep teaching them before the season started.”

The Jets return to action Thursday night when they host the Seattle Kraken at Canada Life Centre.