Steve Mason to get start in net against Rangers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/03/2018 (2770 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Steve Mason will make his first NHL start in nearly two months tonight as the Winnipeg Jets look to take a bite out of the Big Apple.

Mason is returning from his second concussion of the season, suffered Jan. 12 during a pre-game skate in Chicago. He got a conditioning start last weekend with the Manitoba Moose, a 5-4 overtime win in which he made 18 saves, and now gets the Jets net for the first time since a 7-4 win in Buffalo on Jan. 9.

“He had been feeling right and ready for a couple weeks and passed his tests. We’ve given him an awful lot of practice time. The idea was we’d get him into a game in the American (Hockey) League and as soon as we could we’d get him back into an NHL game, so that’s why he goes in tonight,” coach Paul Maurice said following the morning skate at Madison Square Garden.

Winnipeg (39-17-9) faces a New York Rangers club tonight which just completed a sweep of western Canada, beating Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. They are 30-30-6 and sit five points back of the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot with 16 games left to play.

The Jets won’t make any other changes to a lineup that has won two straight games, including a 3-2 decision Sunday night in Carolina that kicked off this six-game road trip. Defenceman Toby Enstrom is close to returning, but Maurice said he didn’t want to push him. Thursday night in New Jersey is a possibility.

Enstrom was hurt blocking a shot during a practice last week and will miss his fourth straight game.

“We’re going to be real cautious with him. Every time we give him a day or two off it gets markedly better,” Maurice said.

Brandon Tanev and Marko Dano will be the healthy scratches, while Adam Lowry, Shawn Matthias and Jacob Trouba remain sidelined by injury. All are closing in on a return and skated again Tuesday morning. Lowry and Trouba remain in non-contact jerseys, while Matthias was a full participant.

“We ask him to stop the ones that are clean and make sure we don’t give them a lot of back-door stuff,” Maurice said of the keys to giving Mason a smooth ride back into the crease.

Connor Hellebuyck has been a workhorse this season, and Maurice said the hope is to give the No. 1 starter some additional rest down the stretch with the hope of a long and successful playoff run on the horizon.

“If you looked at this stretch and you didn’t factor in (Mason’s) injury, we would have looked at this as a place that we’d get both goaltenders and roll them a little bit. Six on the road, back home for a bunch, and then kind of finish out on the road a little bit,” said Maurice.

Jets projected lineup:

Goal

Mason

Hellebuyck

Forwards

Connor-Scheifele-Wheeler

Perreault-Little-Roslovic

Ehlers-Stastny-Laine

Hendricks-Copp-Armia

Defence

Morrissey-Byfuglien

Kulikov-Myers

Morrow-Chiarot

Scratches: Tanev (healthy), Dano (healthy), Lowry (injured), Matthias (injured), Enstrom (injured), Trouba (injured)

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg