Jets place Dylan DeMelo on injured reserve

The Winnipeg Jets will be without one of their best and most reliable defenseman for the time being, as the team announced on Friday morning that it has placed Dylan DeMelo on injured reserve.

DeMelo suffered what appeared to be a leg injury when he got tangled up with Mikko Rantanen during the Jets’ 8-3 win over the Dallas Stars on Thursday night.

Following the game, Winnipeg head coach Scott Arniel told reporters, including Ken Wiebe of The Winnipeg Free Press, that DeMelo would be out on a week-to-week basis following the injury.

DeMelo, 33, is in the midst of his 12th season in the NHL and his eighth as a member of the Jets. Through 19 games played this season, the veteran right-hander has notched eight points on one goal and seven assists while skating to a plus-3 rating on an average of 20:15 of time on ice per game. DeMelo was playing on Winnipeg’s top pairing on Thursday night alongside Josh Morrissey, who had just returned from his own injury.

In a corresponding move, the Jets recalled defenseman Henry Thrun from their AHL affiliate Manitoba Moose. Thrun, 25, has 7 points in 14 games played with the Moose so far this season, and he has past NHL experience, mostly with the San Jose Sharks but most recently as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs last year.

It has been a highly streaky start to the campaign for Winnipeg, which started off scorching hot, then dropped nine games in a row, and has now earned a fifth straight victory to get back above NHL .500 with a record of 9-8-3.

The Jets find themselves in the tightly-packed middle of a competitive Central Division. Aside from the first-place Minnesota Wild and the last-place Chicago Blackhawks, every team in the Central has between 20 and 25 points in the standings.