Morning Skate Report: Jets vs Panthers

WINNIPEG - There may only be 250 fans in the building at Canada Life Centre tonight when the Winnipeg Jets host the Florida Panthers, but after playing eight straight games on the road, the Jets are happy to be home.
They just have one request of the 250 fans.
"We're just hoping the 250 people here bring as much noise makers as they can in their purses or in their jackets," said interim head coach Dave Lowry. "We've played in this environment before, we've won a lot of hockey games in this environment. For us, that has to be our primary focus - yes we're at home, we don't have the luxury of having the fans to help us with momentum, we'll have to find ways to generate our own."
Momentum was something the Jets (17-14-7) seized control of during numerous sections of the recently concluded four-game road trip.
They scored the opening goal in three of the four games, only to see their opponents rally back.
Most recently, the Jets had a 2-0 lead over the Pittsburgh Penguins that evaporated in nine seconds in the third period, leading to a 3-2 shootout loss.

"We knew that the teams we were playing, they were going to come out and there was going to be a push," said Lowry. "Against Pittsburgh, we had a pretty good second period. We'll carry on with that. The teams you're playing, they usually have an answer. They're not going to go away. We have to learn to stay in games."

They'll have to do just that tonight against the Panthers, who are tied with Tampa Bay for top spot in not only the Atlantic Division, but the entire National Hockey League.
The Panthers (28-9-5) are finishing a five-game road trip tonight, while the Jets are looking to improve on a 10-6-1 home record.
Winnipeg's line-up is in a bit of flux, as Dominic Toninato is in COVID-19 protocol after a positive test, but has since tested negative.
Should he get that second consecutive negative, the 27-year-old will draw back into the line-up.
If that isn't possible, the Jets line-up is expected to look like this, with Connor Hellebuyck getting his 12th consecutive start:
Copp-Scheifele-Wheeler
Connor-Dubois-Perfetti
Stastny-Lowry-Poganski
Vesalainen-Harkins-Svechnikov
Morrissey-Schmidt
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Beaulieu
Adam Lowry had one assist on the road trip, which came on Pierre-Luc Dubois' late third period goal in Washington.
Still, Lowry wants to find ways to get on the scoresheet a bit more to help add more offensive punch to the Jets line-up.
"It's going to be critical for the other guys playing those minutes to find a way to contribute, not just trying to play net even," said Lowry. "We haven't had a lot of production pretty much the entire year from our group so I think it's something in the second half we definitely need to improve upon if we want to be a team that's going to push for the playoffs and a team that's ultimately going to get in."
The big centre has been playing both special teams as injuries and COVID-19 protocol have continued to change the Jets roster over the last six weeks.

Just prior to Blake Wheeler's return to the line-up in Boston on Saturday, Nikolaj Ehlers went down with a lower-body injury against Washington that will keep him out week-to-week.
The Jets power play found the back of the net in three of the four road games. It's a good place to be, but Winnipeg still wants to be more effective on the man advantage, especially at key points in the game.
"You look at good power plays, they're not predictable. We want to make sure that with ours, our number one mindset is we like shots. We like volume," said Dave Lowry. "Sometimes when you're not scoring, you're looking for the next play instead of changing the mindset and doing things simpler - thinking about bodies at the net and getting pucks to the net."
No doubt a winless skid of four games - especially with so many stretches of good hockey yielding only two of eight possible points - is tough to take at this point of the season.
There are 44 games left on the schedule, and the Jets know it's important to start turning those one-point nights into big two-point wins.
"You get a win and you might not have deserved it and now all of the sudden the sky isn't falling, you're feeling a little better, you're moving around a little more," said Adam Lowry. "Just finding a way to get that win, you start to get some positive results and then you can build on those."
Puck drop is set for 7 pm CT.