Perfetti joins Jets ahead of three-game road trip

WINNIPEG - It's been a wild 72 hours for Cole Perfetti.
On December 28, he was putting the finishing touches on his second straight three-point performance at the IIHF World Junior Championship, helping Canada to a second straight victory and putting the Jets prospect atop the tournament scoring list.
Less than 24 hours later, the tournament was cancelled by the IIHF due to positive COVID-19 cases. Instead of playing against Germany that night, Perfetti was reassigned to the Manitoba Moose, and by the time the Winnipeg Jets hit the ice on Friday, Perfetti was recalled to the team's taxi squad.
"It's tough to have an opportunity like that come to an end," Perfetti said. "It was a rough 48 hours but I'm glad to be here, great practice today and it's awesome to be back in this room and hopefully (I) can do something here with it."
The 19-year-old Perfetti turns 20 on New Year's Day and will be travelling with the Jets to Vegas as the team begins a three-game road trip.

Brenden Dillon joked that the road trip is a pretty good birthday present after Perfetti's time at the World Juniors was cut short.
"I don't know if we can qualify him leading the tournament in scoring with only two games," he laughed. "We expected more of him."

On a more serious note, interim head coach Dave Lowry feels that Perfetti, who played the first two games of his NHL career back in October, has handled the emotional roller coaster of the last couple days well.
"He's extremely mature, beyond his years," Lowry said. "I just want to see him in practice here. I don't know what the plan is in terms of games this week, that will play itself out, but he's around and he's going to be part of the group."
Perfetti, the 10th overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, skated alongside Adam Lowry and Kristian Reichel on Friday.
In total, the Jets had 22 skaters, meaning the practice jersey inventory was tested during the 50-minute session at Canada Life Centre.
C.J. Suess and Mikey Eyssimont wore light blue with Evgeny Svechnikov remaining in non-contact gold.
The full line rushes looked like this:
Stastny-Scheifele-Ehlers
Connor-Dubois-Harkins
Perfetti-Lowry-Reichel
Toninato-Gustafsson-Vesalainen
Eyssimont-Suess-Svechnikov
Morrissey-Schmidt
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-DeMelo
Beaulieu
Lowry is the fourth head coach Perfetti has played under this season. It's a list that includes Paul Maurice, Manitoba Moose head coach Mark Morrison, and Hockey Canada's Dave Cameron.
Perfetti said he's picked up a lot from each and every one of them.
"I think the biggest thing that Paul originally had talked about and Coach Lowry talks about a lot too is for me to get my feet moving," Perfetti said. "I think I've been working on that. There's lots of room for improvement in my game but that's the exciting part. I'm excited to learn about it and continuing to get better."
Lowry wants to see all his players move their feet to the front of the net, an area which has been a particular point of emphasis for the Jets over the last six practices.

It's two-fold though. It's not just about offence. It's about handling opposing forwards in front of Connor Hellebuyck and Eric Comrie as well.
"Just turn on any game and you're looking in the offensive zone. You look at the number of bodies that are at the net, that tells me that's where the game is right now," said Lowry. "With the crack down on cross-checking, it's allowed players to get to the net. It's become harder to defend. What you have to do is find different ways."
Dillon is one of many defencemen in the league that has re-learned how to defend in that area.
"It's something I take a lot of pride in, in wanting to be the best I can defensively, being hard to play against, these types of things," he said. "I think, for us, we've had a lot of practice time here to work on that and I think it benefits both sides -- the forwards and the D."
Oh yes. They've had plenty of practice time.
Including Friday, the Jets have had six practice days since earning a 4-2 win over the St. Louis Blues on December 19.
The shortest of those practices was 45 minutes, though that won't be the case ahead of Saturday's flight.
"Our guys are tired of practicing. We get that," Lowry said. "We know that tomorrow - being that it's an afternoon game the following day - we'll run about 20 or 22 minutes. It'll be speed, a little bit of special teams, then we'll get on a flight and go to Vegas."
Being with the Jets has taken some of the sting out of the World Juniors disappointment for Perfetti, and even without the guarantee of playing in any of the games on the trip, he's excited to start the next part of his hockey season.
"It's great to be here," Perfetti said. "Obviously, this is the end goal and this is where you want to be ultimately. It's exciting to be here and I'm just trying to make the most of what I can from it."