JNGD -3 / 3 Things To Watch Tonight Against The Flames

The Jets are back home and they kick off the final week of training camp and stretch of three preseason games this week by hosting the Calgary Flames.

The Flames have had a rough go of things thus far in the preseason, but did manage to pick up a win on Friday night against the Arizona Coyotes.

The Jets meanwhile are still looking for win number one of their preseason and as you’ll note in the three things to look for tonight, they are going up against a Flames team that will have a couple of quality players, but not a whole lot of much else.

Sean Monahan and Matthew Tkachuk make the trip to Winnipeg, but those are about the only two names on forward you’re probably going to recognize. The rest of the Flames lineup both at forward and on defence are made up of a collection of on-the-bubble players fighting to stay on the big team. Flames coach Glen Gulutzan has stated that tomorrow the Flames roster is going to get trimmed down, so this is a last chance for some Flames player to stick on the team. The talent level on Calgary is going to be a bit thin, but that should mean we’re going to see a lot of hustle and compete from them. Don’t think this will be an easy time tonight for the Jets.

The same “last chance to fight for positions” can be said for a handful of Jets that are in the lineup tonight. Marko Dano, JC Lipton, Nic Petan, Brandon Tanev  all draw in as they continue their battle for a spot in the bottom six group of forwards. The defence is a little more set with the only real question being Tucker Poolman who is also in the lineup. He’s for sure played himself into the lineup to start the season, but at who’s expense? Dmitry Kulikov?

The Jets have gone the first four games of the preseason without scoring an even-strength goal. Getting one of those would be ideal and ease a few concerns that fans have that one of the Jets biggest strengths last season is regressing this season. The Jets are dressing a bit more of a regular lineup tonight after two games on the road where they leaned more on AHL and prospect level talent, not to mention preseason games have been penalty filled and full of special teams work. All that said, getting better with 5 on 5 play should be a focus tonight for the Jets.

The Jets need to pick up a win tonight strictly for confidence reasons as a lineup featuring most of the top six forward group (Wheeler, Laine, Ehlers, Scheifele) is going against a roster made up mostly of Stockton Flames players. They get that win tonight, beating the Flames 5-2.