Lowry, Perreault would come in handy

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This article was published 29/10/2017 (2875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two missing pieces of the Jets lineup are getting closer to returning.

Centre Adam Lowry joined his teammates for Sunday’s morning skate, wearing a yellow no-contact jersey. He suffered an upper-body injury Oct. 12 in Vancouver and was considered “day-to-day”, but that has turned into missing six straight games.

“We’re just waiting for him to get into full contact. He’s making improvements. It’s slower than we had hoped. There’s not much we can do with it. He feels better each day,” coach Paul Maurice said Sunday. “At least now we can work on the conditioning. When he turns the corner to full contact we shouldn’t be very far off.”

Forward Mathieu Perreault is expected to resume skating by mid-week and is aiming for a potential return to the lineup as early as the Nov. 10 game in Las Vegas, said Maurice. Perreault has missed five straight games with a lower-body injury after blocking a shot in the Oct. 14 game against Carolina.

“I think our team looks a little bit different with Adam Lowry in the lineup and Matty Perreault in the lineup,” said Maurice.

Both players are on injured reserve, meaning subsequent moves would have to be made to get them on the roster once they are healthy.

HUTCH DRAWING INTEREST

We speculated earlier in the week GM Kevin Cheveldayoff might be hearing from some teams looking to upgrade their goalie situation.

Analyst Nick Kypreos addressed the issue during Saturday’s Hockey Night In Canada broadcast, saying current Manitoba Moose goalie Michael Hutchinson is drawing interest.

There are a handful of teams, including Pittsburgh and Vegas, that currently have holes to fill in net. Whether a deal can be done remains to be seen.

Hutchinson is 2-1-1 through four starts with the Moose, with a 2.77 GAA and .918 save percentage. He’s essentially playing a backup role to Eric Comrie, and the organization also has Jamie Phillips waiting in the wings in the ECHL and likely ready to move up a level once there is room.

COACH DEFENDS BUFF

It’s a play that had many Winnipeg Jets fans up in arms — a seemingly lazy puck retrieval by Dustin Byfuglien that resulted in Columbus scoring the game-winning goal in overtime last Friday.

But Maurice wasn’t about to throw his veteran defenceman under the bus when asked to explain Sunday what had gone wrong. Maurice defended Byfuglien, saying what looked to be a lackadaisical effort was actually a deliberate attempt to play possum in the three-on-three format.

“What Dustin is doing is trying to draw that guy. He’s trying to drown him down. He’s not trying to go grab it, and then have to beat him. He’s trying to draw him in and use the back of the net,” said Maurice. “It didn’t work.”

It sure didn’t. Josh Anderson quickly made up the distance between himself and Byfuglien and took the puck off his stick, then cycled it around in the offensive zone with his teammates. Goalie Steve Mason lost his stick, and Anderson eventually converted give-and-go feed from the slot to give the Blue Jackets the 2-1 win.

To hear Maurice explain it, he was more upset with forward Patrik Laine’s inability to clear the puck a few seconds after Byfuglien had it taken away.

“And then it came over to Patty to the other corner and he just got bumped off the puck. A little stronger on the puck would have helped, yeah,” said Maurice. “We had possession there twice. First (Byfuglien), then Patty in the corner. And we need to control that.”

Byfuglien wasn’t made available to talk about the play following Sunday morning’s pre-game skate. But Maurice said there was no reason to have any issue with how he played it.

“I think you’ve seen him do it a bunch of times,” said Maurice.

It was rough two-game trip for Laine, who was the main culprit in last Thursday night’s 2-1 overtime loss in Pittsburgh. He tried to saucer a pass to teammate Tyler Myers, only to have it picked off by Phil Kessel who went down on a breakaway to score.

Laine didn’t want to dwell on what went wrong, instead focusing on the fact his team took two tough teams to overtime in back-to-back contests.

“I think we played a couple solid games. Two points out of four of a road trip is not bad but we wanted more points but that’s what we got so we got to be satisfied with that,” Laine said Sunday. However, the sniper did say he and his teammates have to start shooting the puck more.

“That’s one thing that needs to change, that we always have to shoot first and then look for passes. I think it’s only the mindset that has to change,” he said.

THREE-ON-THREE

 

Maurice was asked if the Jets might want to start practicing three-on-three more, considering how valuable those lost points could end up being down the road. Winnipeg is 26-30 in overtime since returning to the league in 2011, but those numbers are slightly deceiving. They were 15-10 in their first three seasons after returning to the league, but just 11-20 in the past four-plus seasons.

“We’ll look at it,” said Maurice. “I know the year we didn’t touch it once we scored a bunch of goals 3 on 3. We never looked at it, never practised it and were pretty elite in it.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @mikemcintyrewpg