Jets enjoying extra practice time

WINNIPEG – This morning the Winnipeg Jets returned to the ice and once again, Mark Scheifele was not with them.

The Jets centreman missed the last game against the Philadelphia Flyers and associate coach Scott Arniel said that Scheifele remains day-to-day with his lower body injury.

Nikolaj Ehlers also missed today’s skate and Arniel said it was more of a maintenance day for the Danish forward and is hopeful he will play tomorrow against the New York Islanders as the team closes out its four game homestand.

There was some good news as well with Kyle Connor and David Gustafsson taking part of practice in normal jerseys.

Connor ended up skating with Adam Lowry and Gabe Vilardi during line rushes and the Jets leading goal scorer even took his normal spot on the top power play unit. But Arniel was hesitant to say Connor will be playing on Tuesday.

“It’s wait until tomorrow morning. Like I said, today was the first one where he was right in the middle of everything whether it was power play or five-on-five drills,” said Arniel.

“It was good for him to kind of be in situations that were real game like. So, he’ll have to wake up tomorrow, see what it’s like, how he’s doing tomorrow and go from there.”

The Jets saw their eight-game win streak and 14 game point streak come to an end on Saturday against a Flyers team that Arniel said played a style similar to theirs.

“We went back and looked at the video and they smothered us like we like smother teams. They pressured hard all over the ice,” said Arniel.

“Even for a team that played the night before they didn’t give us a whole lot of room to work. At the end of the day, we did give up chances in the second because we tried to open it up, we tried creating offence that maybe wasn’t there.”

With the All-Star break coming up soon, the challenge will be focusing on the games before the break comes. After coming out of seven games in twelve days to start the new year, the Jets will have had a couple days off between games before the Islander contest. Add to that some more practice days before their three-game road trip.

“Hopefully our guys, we get healthy. Get ourselves back,” said Nate Schmidt.

“Get rid of the flu and all that stuff that’s been rolling around everybody. It’s that time of year, it’s going to be a good time.”

Schmidt’s defence partner Dylan Samberg agrees.

“Rest is a weapon. A lot of games in not a lot of days. Every team goes through it,” said Samberg.

“We did really well during that stretch and can’t complain. Take these next few days (after the Islander game) get to practice, we haven’t been able to practice a lot.”

SAMBERG OFF TO MANITOBA OPEN

The news came out today that Samberg has received a sponsor’s exemption to compete as an amateur in the 2024 Manitoba Open at Southwood Golf and Country Club in August. The 24-year-old gave an honest assessment of his golf game.

“Not bad. Hopefully I can just go out there and compete, but I guess I haven’t really played a lot recently,” said Samberg.

“It’ll be tough to assess but going to try to get some new golf clubs this summer and go from there.”