Nov. 9 | Predators at Jets

Home, sweet home.

The Winnipeg Jets are back in their own barn after an extended road trip that spanned eight days and began with a loss to the Vegas Golden Knights followed by back-to-back wins over the Arizona Coyotes and St. Louis Blues. Now, they play five consecutive games at the downtown rink, with a great chance to build off a 6-4-2 start to the season, which includes just one regulation loss in the past eight games (5-1-2).

Tonight is the third in a row against a Central Division opponent, and fourth this NHL season. Winnipeg is a perfect 3-0-0 and will try to keep it going against a re-building Nashville Predators squad that is making its final stop of a five-game road trip. The Preds are 1-3-0, with the only victory coming in against the Oilers in Edmonton to go with losses to the Seattle Kraken, Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames.

Here’s what you need to know prior to puck drop:

FROM THE PRESS BOX

KEN SAYS: It was a statement game Tuesday night in St. Louis for the Jets’ top trio of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Alex Iafallo, which scored twice at even strength and added a pair of goals on the power play. Speaking of the man advantage, the Jets have scored four times during the past three games, moving them up to 20th in the NHL at a 17.8 per-cent efficiency. That’s an important development for the Jets, who will now work to get the penalty kill moving in a similar direction (it’s currently 29th out of 32 teams and operating at 70.0 per cent).

After Connor Hellebuyck started 10 of the first 12 games of the season, Laurent Brossoit gets the net in this Central Division battle in what will be his third start of the season. Brossoit will be looking for his first win of the season after allowing seven goals in his first two starts. Juuse Saros has been busy in the early going for the Predators and is set to make his league-leading 11th start.

A notoriously slow starter, Saros hasn’t been up to his own lofty standards (2.73 goals-against average and .911 save percentage), but he’s given the Jets fits over the years, going 4-5-3 with a 2.33 goals-against average and a .932 save percentage in 12 career regular-season appearances. Filip Forsberg leads the Predators in scoring with 12 points in 12 games, with free-agent signing Ryan O’Reilly right behind with seven goals and 11 points.

Predators captain Roman Josi is off to another solid start (eight points while averaging 24:34 of ice time) and has 25 points in 34 career games against the Jets.

MIKE SAYS: Aside from the few stars Kenny mentioned above, you might need a program to identify much of the Nashville roster these days, however, there’s no question this somewhat non-descript group works hard. We saw that down the stretch last season when, after trading several key pieces at the deadline (including Nino Niederreiter to Winnipeg), the Preds made a late surge and nearly qualified for the playoffs. In other words, don’t expect anything to come easy regardless of what the roster looks like.

Jets forward Nino Niederreiter will face off against his former Predators Thursday night at Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg. (Jason Franson / The Canadian Press files)

There’s an old cliche in hockey that the first game back after a long road trip is often a “trap” game, so we’ll see if that’s the case tonight. No question the Jets are playing well, especially at five-on-five, and they’d like to start this lengthy homestand on a winning note. I was hoping to see local product Cody Glass in action tonight, but, unfortunately, he’s dealing with a lower-body injury that will sideline him for an eighth consecutive contest. The good news is he’s getting closer to a return. Glass set career highs last year in Music City with 14 goals, 21 assists and 35 points.

—Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe

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MORNING LINES

Other than the goaltender, the Jets will roll the same lineup once again.

WINNIPEG JETS

FORWARDS

Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo

Perfetti-Namestnikov-Ehlers

Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton

Barron-Gustafsson-Kupari

DEFENCE

Morrissey-DeMelo

Dillon-Pionk

Samberg-Schmidt

GOAL

Brossoit

Hellebuyck

HEALTHY SCRATCHES: D Stanley, D Chisholm

INJURED: D Heinola (ankle), F Vilardi (knee)

It was an optional skate today for Nashville, but this is how they’re expected to look.

NASHVILLE PREDATORS

FORWARDS

Forsberg-O’Reilly-Nyquist

Sherwood-Novak-Evangelista

Trenin-Sissons-Parssinen

Foudy-McCarron-Smith

DEFENCE

Josi-Fabbro

Lauzon-Carrier

Del Gaizo-Barrie

GOAL

Saros

Lankinen

HEALTHY SCRATCHES: F Tomasino, F Fagemo

INJURED: D McDonagh (lower body, day-to-day), D Schenn (lower body, IR), C Glass (lower body, IR)

NOTABLE QUOTABLES

Nino Niederreiter, on whether there’s another animal he’d prefer after Brenden Dillon called him a “bull” and Neal Pionk an “ox” for his rugged style of play:

“I don’t know, maybe horse? Anything. I guess it speaks to the style of game I’m playing, I’m trying to go out there and do whatever I can, try to be strong and working down low. I think that’s probably the reason they call me that.”

Mark Scheifele, on trying to make it four wins in a row over a Central Division rival this season:

“Every time you play a divisional opponent it’s a big game and it means a little more. It’s nice to be home, it’s nice to be in our own building and our own beds. It’s another tough test. We just have to take it the same we’ve taken it all year, take it shift by shift and get everyone going.”

Associate coach Scott Arniel on the dangers of the first game back home after a long road trip:

“I just look at it that there isn’t a road way or a home way to play. Just the right way. I know it’s an old thing. I heard it in football one time and it’s been in hockey. But we have a style of play that we want to play, and I don’t care if we’re coming off a long trip or a one-day trip or whether we’re going out on the road for our first game, we have a style of play that we need to be at and it has to be at that level. Right from the start, whatever Nashville tries to throw at us, we’ve got to be ready for that, and hopefully, we’re better than they are.”

Andrew Brunette on adding former St. Louis Blues captain Ryan O’Reilly to the Predators this offseason:

“With Ryan, he’s out before practice. He’s always working on his game. There’s not a practice that goes by that he doesn’t try to work on something, try to grow as a player. For our young guys to see him out there early, tipping pucks, shooting pucks, he’s always got the puck on his stick. It’s really good for them to see that and the preparation he puts in to play a game. To bring him in has changed a lot of different things here. To have young guys see things done the right way, the professional way, is indispensable.”

WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON

Ken had a one-on-one with Nashville GM Barry Trotz this morning, covering a wide range of topics with the Dauphin product who was offered — and turned down — the Jets head coaching job in the summer of 2022 that eventually went to Rick Bowness. Mike will handle game duties tonight. You can read both their pieces online at winnipegfreepress.com and in Friday’s print edition.