2 weeks Ago By Scott Billeck
It must be hockey season because some social media users were left aghast at some of the line combos they saw as training camp got going for the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday. Two things, folks: It’s Day 1 of camp, and head coach Scott Arniel said not to read too much into those lines. “It’s just my history, kind of on other teams, when those guys can come out in the first couple of days and get their touches amongst each other, it kind of gets them up and running,” Arniel said, referring mainly to his veteran contingent.
“I’ve also seen it the other way where you put a veteran with a couple of young guys, and it gets very frustrating. For those guys, it was more just familiarity playing amongst each other. Things change as the games come and we’ve got two that come real quick here.
I just wanted to have those guys that have played together do that. We split the D up so there was a different look to it but it will all kind of work itself back to who will play with who.” Indeed, the Jets host their first pre-season game at Canada Life Centre on Saturday before travelling to Edmonton for the second half of the weekend back-to-back on Sunday afternoon.
The lineups for both games are expected to be youth-heavy, giving Arniel and his coaching staff time to evaluate the kids. “There’s guys here that maybe in other years might not get an exhibition game and they’re probably, more than likely, almost everybody ..
. Don’t quote me on the everybody, but it’s going to be real close to everybody getting a game,” Arniel said. Eric Comrie and Kaapo Kahkonen, the two goalies battling to be Connor Hellebuyck’s understudy, will each get a full game over the weekend.
Hellebuyck, meanwhile, wants two-and-a-half games and wants to play against NHL-heavy lineups. So expect the reigning Vezina winner to see most, if not all, of his action in the second half of Winnipeg’s six-game pre-season slate. Arniel, who is already more forthcoming than his predecessor, also revealed that, in a perfect world, he’d like to enter the season with a 22-man roster comprised of 13 forwards, seven defencemen, and two goalies.
“We want to try to have a rotation where our seventh guy is getting a little bit more,” Arniel said. “It will just be a situation and we’ll see. If we can get to the end of camp, guys certainly have to go through waivers, and we’re going to have to fight that battle, too.
(Carrying 22 on roster), it certainly helps you cap-wise if you can go 13 and seven.” Kyle Connor-Mark Scheifele-Gabe Vilardi Morgan Barron-Rasmus Kupari-Axel Jonsson-Fjallby Brayden Yager-Jacob Julien-Nikita Chibrikov Jaret Anderson-Dolan-David Gustafsson-Mason Shaw Kieron Walton-Markus Loponen-Ben King Josh Morrissey-Dylan Coghlan Dylan Samberg-Elias Salomonsson Ville Heinola-Colin Miller Dmitry Kuzmin-Simon Lundmark Nino Niederreiter-Adam Lowry-Mason Appleton Nikolaj Ehlers-Vladislav Namestnikov-Alex Iafallo Colby Barlow-Brad Lambert-Parker Ford Daniel Torgersson-Dominic Toninato-Connor Levis Kevin He-Danny Zhilkin-Chaz Lucius Haydn Fleury-Neal Pionk Logan Stanley-Dylan Demelo Ashton Sautner-Tyrel Bauer Dylan Anhorn-Dawson Barteaux scott.billeck@kleinmedia.
ca X: @scottbilleck.
