Jets face high-flying Stars tonight

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This article was published 02/02/2016 (3738 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

No one will ever protest a paid vacation. And yet there might be one member of the Winnipeg Jets who would have just preferred to keep playing rather than disappear for a few days during the National Hockey League’s All-Star weekend.

We give you Nikolaj Ehlers, whose debut on the Jets new top line alongside Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler included his first NHL hat trick.

Here’s Ehlers if maybe the break came at a bad time, given how productive he was in the Jets last game:

“Maybe a little,” he said with a grin. “I took a few days off and went back to working out. We played a really good game. We had a good feeling with how we were doing and we’ve just got to keep on doing that.”

Ehlers said he spent a few days thinking about his three-goal effort in the win over Arizona, often reminded about the feat as his phone came to life with messages and congratulations.

Now that trio will be asked to do it all over again against a high-flying Stars team that is just three points back of Chicago for first in the Central Division and has three games in hand.

“We play with a lot of speed in the offensive zone and are on similar wavelengths,” said Wheeler of his new linemates. “It seems like we’re trying to do the same things with the puck and we jived off each other pretty well.

“You never know how chemistry is going to go, especially when you haven’t played with guys before but it seemed to be good last game and hopefully we keep it rolling.”

The Jets desperately need that offensive production consistently, especially after going four games scoring just one goal prior to the win over Arizona. And, with their lineup getting healthy again with the return of Mathieu Perreault and Adam Lowry, it also means it will be more difficult for coaches to do the line-matching thing against them.

“It definitely takes pressure off a bit, especially when you’re struggling to get some offence and score goals,” said Bryan Little. “You saw that in the last game, having Scheifs back… those guys picked up the slack. They’re playing good hockey and it helps.

“We were missing five or six forwards for a while there and that definitely puts more pressure on guys to step up offensively. It’s nice having them back and having that depth back.”

Dustin Byfuglien was back at practice Tuesday after spending the weekend in Nashville at the NHL All-Star game. To make room for the healthy bodies, the Jets have placed Matt Halishcuk on waivers.

Ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait

 

 

JETS LINES

 

FORWARDS
Ehlers-Scheifele-Wheeler
Perreault-Little-Stafford
Ladd-Lowry-Burmistrov
Armia-Copp-Thorburn
D PAIRINGS
Enstrom-Myers
Trouba-Byfuglien
Stuart-Chiarot
GOALTENDERS
Hellebuyck (starter)
Hutchinson

 

 

STARS LINES

FORWARDS
Benn-Seguin-Sharp
Janmark-Spezza-Eaves
Roussel-Eakin-Hemsky
Fiddler-Sceviour-Nichushkin
D PAIRINGS
Goligoski-Klingberg
Oduya-Demers
Jokipakka-Oleksiak
GOALTENDERS
Niemi (starter)
Lehtonen