Every so often it’s fun to focus on a marquee match-up between two elite players and we have that tonight as the New Jersey Devils, led by Taylor Hall is has points in each of his last 274 games played (rough estimate) go up against the Winnipeg Jets and Patrik Laine who has scored 179 goals over the past month (again, rough estimate).

At this rate the Jets could be one of those medial reality shows where we just follow them around to see what is ailing them. We’re not exactly sure hen he was hurt, but Steve Mason is now listed as ‘day to day’ with a lower body injury. (Probably just as well when you see Mason’s career numbers against the Devils below) Connor Hellebuyck starts tonight and Michael Hutchinson has been called back up and will back him up. Also ‘day to day’ is Mark Scheifele who is out with that upper body injury, although Paul Maurice has stated there is no “structural damage” so in this case it could be a case of resting and being better safe than sorry. Brandon Tanev will enter in the lineup in his place. Tyler Myers and Mathieu Perreault will likely play even though they didn’t take part in the morning skate. Perreault sounds more questionable than Myers does so if Perreault can’t go, Marko Dano will draw in. On the bright side, Tobias Enstrom will return to the lineup tonight to give the Jets defense some much needed relief.

And in the end the Jets have Patrik Laine. Everything in life is good when you have Patrik Laine on your team.

Jersey snapped a three game skid on Tuesday with a 6-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens. In that game Taylor Hall had a pair of assists which extended his consecutive points streak to 26 games – albeit with a three game gap in the middle where he missed time due to injury. It’s maybe worth noting that even with Hall’s incredible points streak, the Devils have been a pretty average team around him only going 5-5-0 in their last ten games. It’s hard to imagine how much worse off they’d be without Hall, but they remain in a tight playoff race sitting in the first wild card spot and only five points back of Washington for first place in the division.

When they last met back in Winnipeg on November 18, the Jets exploded for five goals in the second period (a 12:27 span within the second period to be exact) and coasted to a 5-2 win. The Jets have a three game win streak and have won five of the last six games against New Jersey dating back to November of 2014. Interesting to note that in 12 games played against them, Steve Mason has never beaten the Devils having a career 0-9-1 record against them. Thankfully tonight’s starter for the Jets Connor Hellebuyck has had a slight better time against them having gone 3-1-0 with a .900 save percentage.

Kyle Connor – Blake Wheeler – Joel Armia

Mathieu Perreault – Bryan Little – Jack Roslovic

Patrik Laine – Paul Stastny – Nikolaj Ehlers

Matt Hendricks – Andrew Copp – Brandon Tanev

Josh Morrissey – Dustin Byfuglien

Dmitry Kulikov – Tyler Myers

Joe Morrow – Ben Chiarot

Connor Hellebuyck

Michael Hutchinson

Taylor Hall – Nico Hischier – Jesper Bratt

Michael Grabner – Travis Zajac – Kyle Palmieri

Patrick Maroon – Brian Boyle – Stefan Noesen

Blake Coleman – Myles Wood – Drew Stafford

Andy Greene – Sami Vatanen

John Moore – Damon Severson

Will Butcher – Ben Lovejoy

Cory Schneider

Keith Kinkaid

The Jets are dinged up a fair amount, but the return of Enstrom to the lineup should help out the defense. It’s hard to say what New Jersey team will show up beyond Taylor Hall being great. It’ll be a tough draw on the road and at this point I think we can forgive the Jets if they struggle a bit tonight. New Jersey wins 3-1.