JNGD -7: 3 Things To Watch Versus Minnesota Wild

IT’S GAMEDAY!!

Sure it’s only preseason action, but after a summer that felt like it dragged out – especially the last few weeks where we’ve seen a few questionable roster moves  that have caused some angst among Jets fans – we finally get Jets hockey to feast our eyes upon!

The Minnesota Wild are in town and there are three things you should be watch for tonight:

Even the most jaded of hockey fan has to admit it’s good to see the boys on the ice even if it’s in a preseason contest. No more talk of contracts and salary caps and pending free agents come summer 2018 (although let’s be honest, we’re still going to be talking about certain players facing that status all season long) …  Now we get to talk about sticks and pucks and shots and saves.

Memo to Tucker Poolman: You have a very hard name to make a movie pun out of.

Logan Stanley did not have a very good showing at the rookie camp a couple of weekend’s ago, and now he gets to try and impress people playing beside Dustin Byfuglien. It would be nice if the kid can gleam a few pointers on how to be an effective big man on the blueline from Buff. Stanley will end up back in the OHL before camp wraps up, but this will be a great chance for him to start showing Jets fans what Jets scouts seemingly saw in him at last year’s draft.

Meanwhile Poolman will (likely) be paired up with Tobias Enstrom and this could be a possible 3rd defensive line pairing that you may see come opening night. Poolman had a much better rookie camp showing than Logan did and has a bit more of an inside track on snagging a roster spot. Ben Chiarot will be one of the players that stands in Tucker’s way of that very goal, and it will be interesting to see which player performs better tonight.

Kyle Connor, Adam Lowry and Joel Armia are all expected to make the club coming out of camp and will be looking to earn third line (or in Kyle’s situation, maybe even second line) duty. Brandon Lemieux, Michael Sgarbossa and Marko Dano are all fighting for one of the precious final spots on the Jets roster. Dano especially has been a bit of a focus this past weekend as he spent time with “Group B” which seemed to comprise more of Moose-bound players and various prospects.

Has the coaching staff written off Dano as a future Manitoba Moose player this season? Seems a bit unlikely at this point, but it’s clear that Paul Maurice and the coaching staff are looking for him to step his game up and earn a roster spot.