Jets ready to juggle lines if Mark Scheifele’s injury is serious

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This article was published 27/12/2017 (2816 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Paul Maurice knew it was bad. He’s seen Mark Scheifele get knocked down plenty of times. But not like this.

“You’re hoping they pop back up. You’re just hoping it’s the wind knocked out of them. He doesn’t go down easily and he certainly doesn’t lay on the ice ever. So you know if he’s down it’s significant,” Maurice said following Wednesday’s 4-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers that may prove to be extremely costly.

Scheifele got tangled with Edmonton defencemen Brandon Davidson and crashed hard into the boards, writhing around in obvious pain on the ice while a hush came over an otherwise raucous Bell MTS Place early in the second period. He eventually got up, clutching at his shoulder, and went straight to the dressing room. 

“We’ll get a real good look at it for (Thursday). Initially I would say it doesn’t look very good,” said Maurice.

Captain Blake Wheeler moved from his usual spot on Scheifele’s wing to centre the top line as Joel Armia moved up to play with him and Kyle Connor. Wheeler and his teammates were sombre after the game despite the victory.

“That’s my running mate, man. That’s part of my livelihood, a big part of what do as a team. Irreplaceable. Just fingers crossed,” said Wheeler.

Veteran centre Bryan Little said it was difficult to lose Scheifele, the team’s second-leading scorer with 15 goals and 23 assists in 38 games.

“It sucks. To see him on the ice, with how quiet the building was, it was tough to watch. He’s been a huge part of our team. He’s one of those guys that you can’t replace in the lineup. It’s a huge loss and I hope he recovers fast,” he said.

Maurice said there will be a number of factors to consider if Scheifele is out long-term, including whether to keep Wheeler at centre.

“We’ll consider it. We don’t need to make a long-term decision until we know it is. Once we do, he’s done it before,” said Maurice. “He was four-and-two (wins and losses) on his draws. He can make adjustments to his game. A big part of the equation is what the wings look like. We don’t have a lot guys that actually play the right side. We’ve got more guys that actually play the left. So if he comes from the right wing into the middle we’ll have to make a decision on that as well.”

Maurice said players such as Joel Armia and Mathieu Perreault are likely to see increased playing time. He raved about Armia’s game Wednesday, which included two goals and plenty of other chances.

“You’ve always felt that Joel wasn’t very far off from having a big night, that he’s going to break out. He’s got a great shot. He was just real strong on that puck and real confident with that. We’re going to need that if Mark’s out a while,” said Maurice. “We got two guys that play reduced minutes that put up good numbers for us. If Blake goes to the middle both Perreault and Armia are going to have to take a big step forward for us.”