BLOG: Salomonsson NHL debut and line juggling

WINNIPEG – After having Monday off, the Winnipeg Jets got back to the ice before leaving on another long road trip.

Neal Pionk wasn’t out on the ice, but Elias Salomonsson was, and he was skating with Pionk’s defence partner, Dylan Samberg. All signs pointing to the young Swede making his NHL debut Wednesday night in Washington.

"It's looking that way, yeah. It's looking that way. You know what? P's (Pionk) day-to-day. He actually skated today, which is good news,” said Scott Arniel.

“He'll be coming on the trip then. But tomorrow, he's going to get his first look."

It took a few questions to get the information out of Salomonsson that he was playing, the Jets 2022 second round pick had a lot of smiles during his media availability. Salomonsson got the news on Monday night.

“Mo (Mark Morrison) called me the coach of the Moose,” said Salomonsson.

“Lot of excitement. Of course, something I dreamed of so a lot of emotions right now.”

As for Pionk, the Jets defenceman played only two shifts against the Wild on Sunday before leaving with a lower body injury. Pionk skated on another rink at hockey for all centre and the news with regards to him is positive.

"When we first heard, we thought it was a lot more severe. I thought I'd be giving you the ol' 'week-to-week,' but now I got the 'day-to-day' which is really good news,” said Arniel.

“He'll obviously have to see how it feels after skating today but it was good that yesterday it felt a lot better than it did during the game, so that's a good sign."

That wasn’t the only news from practice on Tuesday as there were some new look lines as well.

Arniel did some more tweaking to his bottom nine forward groups as Vladislav Namestnikov moves between Cole Perfetti and Tanner Pearson, Adam Lowry reunites with Nino Niederreiter and Alex Iafallo and Jonathan Toews centering Morgan Barron and Gustav Nyquist.

“It gives me some big heaviness on the wing as well, especially with this road trip, with Bear being over there. But I just wanted to see Vladdy back in the middle,” said Arniel.

“And obviously we know what he did for us last year and I just think he's a puck possession guy and it'll help that that, maybe spark those other two guys.”

Barron has played the majority of the season at centre on the fourth line but is looking forward to playing with Toews.

“You guys know, he’s had a ton of success. Really excited to kind of get the chance,” said Barron.

“Current version of me is very excited, but younger version of me would have been blown away. It’ll be fun.”