WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Jets kick off the home portion of their 2023-24 schedule this afternoon with their home opener against the Florida Panthers.
Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey wants to see his team get things started the right way at Canada Life Centre.
"For sure, a huge goal is to be a tough team to play against at home. Obviously, you want to be like that every night but make it difficult for teams to come in here and steal any points, let alone two," said Morrissey on Friday.
"Of course, that starts (Saturday) afternoon and it’s always exciting to get the home opener going, get the season kicked off in front of our fans, and hopefully we can start off the right way tomorrow."
PROJECTED LINEUP
There won't be a morning skate today with the 3 PM CT start but it looks like there won't be any changes to the lineup from Wednesday in Calgary.
Here is today's projected lineup:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Niederreiter-Perfetti-Ehlers
Iafallo-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Namestnikov
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Dillon-Schmidt
Connor Hellebuyck is the projected starter.
QUICK STAT
Mark Scheifele is set to play in his 12th home opener, which will pass Blake Wheeler for the most in franchise history.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Today’s quote of the day comes from captain Adam Lowry, and he is impressed with how all four lines looked in sync against Calgary in the season opener.
“We didn’t necessarily get all the time or games that guys would have loved in the preseason, but I think guys did a good job of allowing us to get used to the new linemates in practice and throughout training camp, so that when we did get into games, we had started learning other guys tendencies, kind of integrating over to the identity of each centreman’s line kind of thing,” said Lowry on Friday.
“I think it’s a lot of communication, it’s talking after the games that we did play, talking after practice. Getting on the same page with routes and things like that. You saw it in game one, I thought for the most part the lines were clicking. We’re going to need that to carry forward.”
