Newest Jet expected to play in Anaheim

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This article was published 02/04/2016 (3476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One home game remains for the Winnipeg Jets in their lost 2015-16 season and it comes Sunday against the Minnesota Wild.

The Jets, 31-39-8 after their 5-4 overtime loss to the Chicago Blackhawks here Friday night — a wild game that contained four video reviews — are destined to be last in the NHL’s Central Division. They currently have 70 points with just four games to play.

The Wild, on the other hand, are locked in a battle to nail down the final playoff berth in the Western Conference.

They’re currently five points ahead of the Colorado Avalanche. Minnesota has three games to play, the Avs, four.

Sunday’s game will not include Jets No. 1 centre Bryan Little, who is on the mend from a compression fracture in his vertebrae a lot quicker than most expected.

Little, out since Feb. 18, has been practising regularly for four days now and has floated the idea that he could yet play this season, but Maurice tipped his hand on the matter after today’s short practice at the MTS Centre.

“He’s not going in yet,” Maurice said. “I’m really on the other side of this argument. I don’t see the need so the convincing would have to be very strong and persuasive.

“It will have to be a very strong argument to make me think it makes sense.”

Maurice said that almost all injured players are lobbying to play as soon as possible.

“Even he, this has to go through more layers before it gets to me,” the coach said. “The doctors have to clear it off, the trainers as well. The doctors have the final say but the medical guys and the strength coach will tell us if he’s physically strong enough beyond being 100 per cent healed, to play the game. And I have to be right that he can do the things he needs to do and that’s a tall order in a short period of time.”

Maurice also said again today that forward Brandon Tanev, a free-agent signing on Wednesday, is likely to get his first NHL start on Tuesday in Anaheim.

“He’s going in, in my mind, in Anaheim,” the coach said. “We’ll get him a couple of more practices. The last home game will be played mostly by the guys who have been here and he’ll start in Anaheim.”

Tanev, 24 and just out of his fourth year at Providence College, will be the eighth player playing his first NHL game this season for the Jets, if he goes in. The team has also used two other players this season who had previously played just one NHL game, Andrew Copp and Joel Armia.

After Sunday’s game, the Jets have a three-game road trip to the California teams to close their season.

 

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca