GAMEDAY: Jets at Avalanche

The Winnipeg Jets will conclude their preseason schedule with a game tonight in Denver against the Colorado Avalanche at 7:30 CT (nhl.com/jets; 680 CJOB/Power 97).

The Jets worked on their special teams for the first time this training camp on Thursday.

“For sure. You look around the league, and it doesn’t always mean success just based on the pieces that are out there. You can look at last season and there’s some teams maybe in the top or bottom that are surprises as to what you see on paper. Paper doesn’t matter," said Josh Morrissey on Thursday.

"What matters is all the guys being on the same page, having a great plan and executing. Whether that’s on the power play or the PK. I’m not going to give away a lot of the secrets, but I like some of the changes we’ve made."

The Jets skated at hockey for all centre this morning before departing to Denver and it will be a veteran filled lineup that goes against the Avalanche and while the final roster doesn’t have to be set until Monday, tonight is important for a lot of players.

“Two things. Obviously, a lot of our veterans are in. Every one of them felt they were really rusty in their first game. On either Monday or Tuesday when they played. Five months off, being away from it, how fast the camp was, not being able to build themselves up,” said head coach Scott Arniel.

“Every one of them, not only did they want to be in the game, they have to chop off the rest of the rust. Because we still have to go another week before our opener. We really wanted to make sure all those guys get in there because we do have some new lines, so new looks."

The fourth line tonight features three players that have over 2500 games of NHL experience with Nino Niederreiter, Al Iafallo and Vlad Namestnikov.

I mean, those two guys have been in the league for a while and played with them last year, year before, so very familiar with those guys,” said Namestnikov.

“So it's always a pleasure to play with them.”

Namestnikov is another veteran who had a challenging season in 25-26 as he only played in 60 games and after recording back-to-back 35+ point campaigns, he had just 14 last season.

“Yeah, last year, let's just keep it last year. Yeah, lots of things went wrong, but those are excuses,” said Namestnikov.

“I guess that I don't like to make excuses. As I said, had good summer. Ready to battle now and to go out there and be fully healthy and play.”

Camp is only eight days old, but tonight marks the Jets’ fourth preseason game, and in just one week, they’ll open the regular season against Boston. For Vladislav Namestnikov, entering his 14th NHL season, the wait is getting old. He’s ready to put camp behind him and get the real season underway.

“It was way too long with summer. So, coming in, I mean, it felt pretty hard still. Like that you just get to play two games, and that's pretty much the only change,” said Namestnikov.

“But other than that, the skates were still hard and everything. So it's always good when it's ending and the season's starting. So everyone's happy, I think.”

On the other end of the NHL experience spectrum is defenceman Tyrel Bauer, who is looking to play his way onto the Jets’ opening-night roster. Playing in his third preseason game, Bauer is paired with veteran Mario Ferraro. The Alberta product isn’t looking too far ahead, choosing instead to keep his focus on the task at hand.

“It was a quick one (training camp) this year. It happened fast. It came at you fast. The majority of it was you know before kind of we had a day off even,” said Bauer.

“It's been good in terms of tonight and looking ahead. I try to stay out of that as much as I can. Listen, I'm just grateful to be here and put my best foot forward every day.”

The Avalanche will likely dress close to what their opening night lineup will be and that means Bauer will be facing Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas and Nazem Kadri.

“Every time you get everybody together on any team, it's kind of that first look, right? So, you kind of feel like a fan sometimes sitting there and being like, ‘Hey, like, wow, this is you know this is cool. Let's see, let's see how that everybody does.’,” said Bauer.

“And every teams at that stage in training camp right now, and we're all battling and fighting for spots or ice time or whatever different guy situations may be, but I think consensus is we're all super excited.”

Puck drop is scheduled for 7:30 CT.

For more details on how to watch tonight's game, click here.