Ehlers eager to put injury-plagued season in the rear-view mirror

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This article was published 28/09/2023 (740 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The fact Cole Perfetti was upright and feeling good enough to skate with the secondary group on the heels of a hellacious headshot one day earlier was reason for optimism.

That Nikolaj Ehlers was flying around in a yellow non-contact jersey was another step in the right direction.

Those were the two items in the good-news category for the Winnipeg Jets, who took to the ice Thursday and finally got to the stage where there was a clear separation with the groups — broken down to mostly projected NHLers and those likely to be heading for the American Hockey League or back to junior.

Perfetti was in good spirits and feeling no ill effects after Calgary Flames forward prospect Martin Pospisil caught him with a blatant shoulder to the chin that also happened to be several beats too late during the second period on Wednesday.

Pospisil was ejected after he was given a match penalty for delivering an illegal check to the head and Perfetti was held out of the third period for precautionary reasons after clearing concussion protocol.

Ehlers, meanwhile, was thrilled to be back skating with the main group after spending the past several days on the ice with strength and conditioning coach Jake Wolff.

Ehlers revealed the neck spasms occurred during a routine workout on the day before the team’s first on-ice sessions.

“It was a thing in the gym that I’ve done a thousand times. I couldn’t even tell you why. It seems to be happening quite a bit in the last couple of years,” said Ehlers. “At least it’s not the regular season.”

The frustration in Ehlers’ voice was understandable, given how much time he missed last season.

“Every single time you get injured, you think, ‘Why me?’ You go in the summer, you work out all summer to have a good season and the season like last year, for me, was mentally very draining because I felt really good coming into camp last year and one game in I was out for 36 games,” said Ehlers, who finished with 12 goals and 38 points in 45 games last season and was limited to only one game in the opening-round series with the Vegas Golden Knights.

“It’s something that you have to work on every single day, work on your body to make sure that doesn’t happen. Trust me, it sucks.”

For the upcoming season, Ehlers has set a simple objective that has nothing to do with traditional boxscore stats.

“I’d like to try and play 82 again. That’s my goal,” said Ehlers. “That would be a lot of fun.”

In the short term, Ehlers is looking forward to getting into some game action next week with Perfetti and Nino Niederreiter.

Jets head coach Rick Bowness is hopeful that might come as early as Monday in Calgary against the Flames.

“Well, it will be good when we get him in the right colours. He couldn’t do half the drills out there because of the contact drills, so at least we got him out and we were able to work with him and get his conditioning back,” said Bowness.

The Jets have others dealing with lower-body injuries, including defencemen Nate Schmidt and Kyle Capobianco and forwards Mason Appleton, Nikita Chibrikov, Danny Zhilkin and Wyatt Bongiovanni.

Bowness also revealed that while Jets 2023 first-rounder Colby Barlow was progressing after dealing with an illness, he’s missed so much time in training camp that he won’t get into any preseason action before he’s returned to the Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League.

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

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