One-half of Jets blue-line suffering injuries

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This article was published 04/12/2014 (3938 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets have a major injury problem on their blue-line.

Jets head coach Paul Maurice announced this afternoon that defenceman Zach Bogosian is out four to six weeks with a lower-body injury, defenceman Toby Enstrom is out for the rest of the month with a lower body injury and defenceman Grant Clitsome is out at least two weeks with an undisclosed injury.

Put it altogether and a Jets team that has been remarkably healthy so far this season suddenly finds itself with some very serious adversity on the injury front.

“We got a big boatload of (bad news) today,” said Maurice. “But everyone is going to have their adversity over the course of the year. I’m hoping ours can be contained to this. Everybody has to deal with this at some point.”

The Jets had lost just 25 man games to injury this season coming into this week, but suddenly find themselves with fully one-half of their blue-line corps now sidelined.

Bogosian was injured blocking a shot in the third period of a 3-2 Jets overtime win over the Edmonton Oilers Wednesday night. He finished the game but was clearly in pain the rest of the game.

Enstrom had originally been listed as day-to-day with a lower body injury but has now missed four games. Maurice said Enstrom and Clitsome “have not progressed with their injury.”

All the injuries at one position are forcing the Jets to improvise and that begins with moving Dustin Byfuglien from forward back to defence, a position he had mostly played for the Jets until he was moved up to the forward spot midway through last season.

Byfuglien said he found out he was switching positions again when he arrived to MTS Centre for practice this morning and found a defenceman’s red practice jersey hanging in his stall. “It was kind of weird seeing a red jersey in my stall,” said Byfuglien.

Asked if switching back to defence from forward would be a difficult transition, Byfuglien replied: “It’s just like getting out of my kingsize bed every morning and putting on slippers.”

Byfuglien was partnered at practice on today with raw rookie Ben Chiarot, who was called up earlier this week from St. John’s and played just his second career NHL game on Wednesday while paired with Bogosian.

The other personnel move the Jets made today in response to all the blue-line injuries was to call up defenceman Julien Brouillette from the St. John’s IceCaps. Brouillette had two goals and two assists in 11 games in the AHL this season. He has 10 career games in the NHL, all of them coming last season with the Washington Capitals.

The one bright note on the injury front for the Jets today was that there’s nothing seriously wrong with Bryan Little, who missed practice today. Maurice said Little is expected to play when the Jets host the Colorado Avalanche Friday night. Maurice also revealed that Michael Hutchinson will get the start in net for the Jets against the Avalanche.

Not only are the Winnipeg Jets missing almost half of their defenceman to injury right now, the club is also not happy with the play of two of the four defenceman who are healthy.

Maurice said he was not pleased with the performance of his third defensive pairing of Adam Pardy and Paul Postma, who collectively struggled all game Wednesday night and were responsible for some costly giveways, including one by Postma in the third period that led to Edmonton’s second goal.

“We’re really looking for an improvement (Friday),” said Maurice. “They’ve been good. They’ve played really well for us but last night they both struggled. We knew it and they did the right thing and came out and had the intensity at practice and showed that they were aware of their game.

“We went through some things on video today… Clearly they knew they could be better. We had five or six guys who played really well (against Edmonton) and we had a bunch of guys struggle. There were forwards who played the exact same game those two guys played. You just don’t see it because it happens further up the ice.

“You’ve forgotten the exact same mistake at 180 feet, but you certainly see the one that’s 10 feet from the net. But most importantly, they’ve been better, they’ve been good. They had an off night. We won the game. These are good pros, they’ll bounce back.”

email: paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek