Lowry misses ninth consecutive game

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This article was published 05/11/2017 (2863 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Adam Lowry is healed up but needs to get his energy back.

The Winnipeg Jets forward, in his fourth NHL season, missed a ninth straight contest Saturday after suffering an upper-body injury Oct. 12 in Vancouver.

He took the morning skate, but wasn’t attached to a specific trio during line rushes, a strong indication he’d be watching the Jets-Canadiens tilt from the press box.

Winnipeg head coach Paul Maurice said the 24-year-old centre has recuperated, but his fitness level isn’t quite there yet.

“He’s healthy, cleared for contact and good. But the injury meant he couldn’t do a lot of conditioning and grinding, and we don’t have to put him in until we get him through that,” Maurice said.

Maurice also said the strong play of the bottom-six forward crew has afforded him the luxury of patience when it comes to Lowry’s eventual return.

“There’s some competition there. I certainly don’t have (Lowry) in the pecking order at the bottom, but coming off an injury we’re healthy enough that he has to be 100 per cent,” he said.

Lowry, the son of longtime NHLer Dave Lowry – an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings – has been a durable performer for the Jets since his rookie 2014-15 season, missing just eight games.

He was pointless in four games to begin the 2017-18 campaign and was averaging more than 16 minutes of ice time before getting hurt.

Habs fans everywhere

The storied history of the Canadiens, incomparable to any other NHL team, wasn’t lost on a kid growing up in Tampere, Finland.

Jets right-winger Patrik Laine said he gets a major rush playing an Original Six team he knew plenty about as a hockey-crazed youngster.

“For me, when I thought about Montreal, it was the place where hockey was born and it was an original NHL team and a team that has so much history,” Laine said following the morning skate. “It’s always nice to play against the Canadian teams, and there’s going to be a lot of Habs fans (in the building).”

Lemieux in spotlight

Jets rookie forward Brendan Lemieux, the son of former Canadiens star Claude Lemieux, received plenty of attention from the Montreal media Saturday morning.

The 21-year-old left-winger, who scored his first NHL goal last weekend against the Pittsburgh Penguins and engaged in his first NHL fight Thursday against Dallas Stars forward Gemel Smith, said as a boy, he was a huge fan of the Canadiens and still has family in Montreal.

He and his father — who won a Stanley Cup with Montreal in 1986 and then three more with the New Jersey Devils (1995, 2000) and Colorado Avalanche (1996) — have a daily dialogue about his progress since his promotion from the Manitoba Moose of the AHL last month, Lemieux said.

“We talk about things I can work on, things I should focus on. Lately, it’s been, ‘Keep going, keep plugging away,’” he said.

Prior to Saturday’s contest, Lemieux, 6-1, 210 pounds, was a plus-two, averaging 8:14 of ice time. He had a pair of minor penalties, a major and 10-minute misconduct. 

The 21-year-old left-winger admitted he knows only a few choice French phrases.

“Just the bad words.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell