The Winnipeg Jets (16-3-0) kick off their six game road trip, the longest of the season tonight in Pittsburgh. The Jets were perfect on the road up until last Thursday. That is the past we don’t need to worry about it we need to focus on taking advantage of unimpressive Pittsburgh Penguins (7-10-4) who are the very bottom of the Metropolitan Division.
Tonight is the first game of three games in four nights, the Jets will play in the Eastern time zone and the Central time zone. The two back to back games are against are teams who have a combine 33 points this season, the Jets have 32 points this season. That being said we still will see the great Sidney Crosby tonight who is still a top tier NHLer at 37 years old with 7 goals and 20 points. They have dropped four of their last five games, only picking up an overtime win over the San Jose Sharks last Saturday. In their last 16 they have 12 losses.
The Jets have dropped three of their last five games but did win their last game over the Stanley Cup champs the Florida Panthers. The Jets have defeated the Penguins in three of their last four meetings and most recently beat them 6-3 earlier this season at Canada Life Centre.
With the back to back games today and tomorrow it was originally thought the Jets would start Eric Comrie as he picked up a win against the Penguins earlier this season. Dailyfaceoff is reporting that Hellebuyck will get the start for the Jets.  The two time Vezina winner has a 13-2-0 record this season, against the Penguins he only has a 4-6-3 record in 13 games with a goals against average of 2.38 and a save percentage of .928 against the Penguins in his career.
Tristan Jarry starts for the Penguins tonight, he has only started in 5 games this season and only has one win. Against the Jets Jarry has a 5-1-0 record in 6 games with a goals against average of 1.16, a save percentage of .960 and has never given up more than two goals against the Jets.
Mark Scheifele is coming off of his nine career hat-trick and has scored five goals in his last five games. I’m liking the energy of Scheifele over the last two games against Florida, I hope we see that more from him. The Jets as a whole are top tier they are averaging 4.21 goals for per game and can take advantage of the worst team defensively in Pittsburgh who are giving up an average of 3.86 goals a game.
The Penguins are without Cody Glass, Kevin Hayes, Kris Letang and Blake Lizotte. Jets should see a return on Monday of Ville Heinola, Logan Stanley was seen skating today but still no timeline on his return according to the Jets head coach Scott Arniel.
Puck drop is set for 6:00 pm CT from PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh you can catch the game on TSN3, 680 CJOB and Power 97.
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Kupari-Iafallo
Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Fleury -Miller
Hellebuyck
Comrie