Enstrom having knee surgery

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This article was published 22/03/2016 (3484 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Another day, another body drops for the Winnipeg Jets.

Jets coach Paul Maurice announced today that veteran defenceman Toby Enstrom will be having knee surgery on Thursday and is out indefinitely. The Jets recalled Julian Melchiori on an emergency basis this morning and he’ll be in the lineup for tonight’s game against the Vancouver Canucks.

“Toby’s been dealing with an issue since November and he’s been able to get through it because of blocks of days off,” said Maurice. “If you can get a two-day block you can get a little better. It’s just getting worse and continues to get worse.

“It got to the point where he’s not recovering and he hasn’t been for almost a month. He’s not recovering enough on his days off and the pain hasn’t subsided. The second goal (Ryan Kesler’s marker) the other night, the tight turn he made… that’s his play, he makes that all day long but now it’s starting to really affect his play.

“We just can’t have the injury itself get any worse than it is,” Maurice added. “He could protect himself better when he was in less pain. I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier, that the docs didn’t say, ‘OK, enough.’“If we were pushing for the playoffs today, he’d still be getting it done. He’s just gotten to a point where we can’t manage the pain any more and there’s no way for him to recover.”

The Jets defensive pairings at the game-day skate featured Jacob Trouba and Dustin Byfuglien, Tyler Myers working with Melchiori and Ben Chiarot still paired with Paul Postma. Expected back as early as Thursday are wingers Nikolaj Ehlers and Joel Armia, but their absences has seen more changes to the forward lines.

Rookie Nic Petan was working on the top line with Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler while Alex Burmistrov — who finished Sunday’s game against Anaheim on the top trio after Mathieu Perreault suffered a concussion — will centre Marko Dano and Drew Stafford.

The promotion to the top line is an important one for Petan, who is celebrating his 21st birthday today.

“If it’s like that tonight, it’s a great opportunity for myself,” said Petan. “I’ll just try to keep up with them and try to get some offence going.”

The matchup against Vancouver is a meaningful one for Petan — he’s a product of Delta, B.C. and grew up a diehard Canucks fan.

“The West Coast Express line (Brendan Morrison between Markus Naslund and Todd Bertuzzi) was my favourite line growing up and to play against (the Canucks) is pretty special.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait