Jets hoping the best for Canucks, react to schedule change

WINNIPEG - In a condensed season like this one, days without a game are extremely important for rest and recovery.
That being said, the Winnipeg Jets didn't want an extra day of rest to come this way.
The Jets were set to take on the Vancouver Canucks in the third and fourth games of the current four-game home stand, but the Canucks have had their games postponed until at least April 8 as a result of players and a staff member entering Covid Protocol.
As a result, those two Jets home games - originally scheduled for April 4 and 6 - are postponed.
"You never want to see teams get shut down, first of all," said Jets forward Mason Appleton. "Obviously players have families and things like that, so hopefully it doesn't spread throughout their families and kind of just stays at the rink."

Those postponed games left a five-day gap in Winnipeg's schedule before they were set to take on the Montreal Canadiens on April 8.
On Friday afternoon, the National Hockey League adjusted that schedule. Now, the Ottawa Senators will come to Winnipeg and play the Jets on April 5 at 6 pm CT, a game that was originally scheduled for May 7.
That gives the Jets an extra day of rest on Sunday, April 4. After playing 17 games in 31 days through the month of March, including every other day since Mar. 9, that day could be beneficial.
"We've played a lot of hockey the last couple months. A couple days off would be great for the minds and the bodies," said Appleton. "We'll just take it a day at a time. If we can get time to recover and rest, we'll take that time and recoup for this last push."
Schedule changes like this are also a sobering reminder of how quickly things can change.
Head coach Paul Maurice said at the start of the season, there were times on the road when he'd 10 feet down the hallway and realize he forgot to put his mask on. These days, he'll catch himself with his mask on all the time, even in his own room while doing video work.
"Our trainers have been on it hard right from the bubble last summer," said Maurice. "We took a fairly hard stand here. We had every player that came in to training camp at that bubble do the seven-day, five-test quarantine, even though the law said we didn't have to. It became part of our culture.
"I'm saying that, but you still can't stop it. Other teams are doing good things too."
The Canucks are the second team in the North Division to have games postponed due to Covid Protocol. The Montreal Canadiens suffered the same fate late in March, and didn't play games between Mar. 21 - 29.
"You're hoping they can all kind of rebound and become the players that they were, that everybody gets healthy, that they're fine," said Maurice. "There's also a reminder of vigilance here, that it's not the time to get casual. This isn't necessarily getting better in other places, though Manitoba has been a pretty fine place to live for the last year-and-a-half. Maybe the short answer is that it hits home."