Jets hit the ice for final practice ahead of playoff series with Edmonton

WINNIPEG - Paul Maurice's playoff gamesmanship is in full swing as he kept his updates on Nikolaj Ehlers and Pierre-Luc Dubois on the vague side Tuesday afternoon, with the Winnipeg Jets set to fly to Edmonton later that day.
"Everybody is making progress," said Maurice following Tuesday's skate at Bell MTS Place, which saw Ehlers in a non-contact jersey, but no Dubois on the ice.
He says both players will make the trip to Edmonton, however.
"We'll get to tomorrow and make a bunch of game time, not so much game time but morning skate decisions to see where guys are at," he said. "It's more game-time announcements. That's probably closer to the truth."

Andrew Copp was also in a non-contact jersey for the third consecutive practice since the end of the regular season.

However, he was a full participant in line rushes on Tuesday, skating alongside Paul Stastny and Kristian Vesalainen.
The full Jets line rushes looked like this:
Connor-Scheifele-Wheeler
Copp-Stastny-Vesalainen
Perreault-Lowry-Appleton
Harkins-Thompson-Lewis
Morrissey-DeMelo
Forbort-Pionk
Stanley-Poolman
Heinola-Benn
The 26-year-old Copp isn't reading much into Winnipeg's 2-7-0 regular season record against the Oilers, either.
"We feel like we're working on what we do best. We're trying to improve parts of our game that need to be improved upon, especially come playoff time," said Copp. "So I think we're just kind of worried about ourselves and fine-tuning our game. Obviously there's a few adjustments you've got to make with the dangerous guys they have but for the most part we're concentrating on ourselves and concentrating on getting us the best team we can be."
Those "dangerous guys" need almost no introduction, as Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl led the National Hockey League in points with 105 and 84, respectively.
Of McDavid's 105 points, 22 of them came against the Jets this season.
"Any time you're playing against dangerous players, you don't want to give them a step," said Copp. "You don't want to give (Auston) Matthews and (Mitch) Marner a step, you don't want to give Draisaitl and (Ryan) Nugent-Hopkins a step.
"So I think he changes the risk-reward calculations the most, but there are other guys in the league that you're worried about when they're on the ice, with your puck management. That's not unique to him but he's unique and probably changes (that) the most."
The changes the Jets have made to their game have them feeling confident heading into Wednesday's Game 1 against Edmonton.
They won both of their final two games of the regular season by a combined score of 9-2 over the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Canucks may have been eliminated from postseason contention at the time, and the Maple Leafs had top spot in the North Division already locked up, but Mathieu Perreault said Winnipeg's style of play had nothing to do with their opponents (or their situations).
"It was the fact that guys were not forcing plays, they were not cheating, they were making the right decisions, they were making sure the puck was out of our net, we were changing at the right times," said Perreault. "So, this is what I felt was what made us successful and this is what I see us hope that we can do in the playoffs and this is the way we're going to have success in the playoffs."
Perreault has been in Jets colours for all four of the team's appearances in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
He remembers them all vividly. The grinding series against the Anaheim Ducks in 2015, the run to the Western Conference Final in 2018, the pressure of expectations in 2018-19, and the bubble in 2019-20.
He's not comparing the two, but he believes the feeling in the room is closer to the 2018 group that made some noise in the playoffs.
"We know when we play a team game, a hard game, and we do all the details we can compete against anybody," said Perreault. "Honestly, like I said, the last couple of games we played a season, the style that we played was what gives us the best chance of winning and I feel like when we play that way we have definitely a good chance."

That feeling and confidence has permeated the Jets dressing room, and it will fly with them into Edmonton.
A group with a good feeling and momentum can be hard to deal with, no matter what the regular season record is.
"In Carolina we lost the season series four straight to Boston and beat them in Game 7 in their building," said Maurice. "It doesn't mean that if you change a few things that you're going to go from being 2-7 against a team to 7-2. They're a real good team."
The Jets feel they're a good team too and by the time the plane takes off, they'll be a little over from 24 hours away from the opportunity to prove it.
"You look at our team the way it's built, the kind of players that we have on our team from the guys on the first line to the guys on the fourth line to the guys that are not even playing, I think we got talent and heart and character and guys that play the right way up and down our lineup," said Copp. "Just counting us out of the series is a little insulting to me."