Stanley day-to-day with injury from Canucks game

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This article was published 05/10/2021 (1486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After suffering a lower-body injury in the second period of Sunday’s 3-2 road loss to the Vancouver Canucks, Winnipeg Jets defenceman Logan Stanley will not be available to play against the Calgary Flames at home on Wednesday.

“Logan’s really day-to-day. He might morning skate (Wednesday) but he’s not going to play,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said Tuesday. “We got him out of the game at the right time and he feels good so that’s a positive.”

On the topic of less optimistic news, Maurice said defenceman Dylan Samberg continues to work through a high ankle sprain and is still “a ways away.” Samberg, a young prospect expected to fight for time with the Jets after spending last season in the AHL with the Manitoba Moose, was injured early into training camp and was projected at the time to miss 6-8 weeks.

Forward C.J. Suess, who scored in the Jets’ preseason-opener against the Ottawa Senators, will also miss the next few weeks with an undisclosed injury. Suess played one game for the Jets during the 2019-20 season but spent all last year with the Moose. Defenceman Nelson Nogier, another Moose prospect, is also out for the foreseeable future.

“C.J. Suess is kind of somewhere between Logan Stanley and Dylan Samberg. It’s going to be weeks but not a month, I think. It’s going to be three weeks maybe,” Maurice said. “And Nogier is between C.J. Suess and Logan. He’s kind of in that, a week or two.”

PP prep: With just two pre-season games remaining, and the Jets roster reduced by 11 players over the weekend, it was time to focus on the power play Tuesday.

Making up the first power-play unit was the Jets top line of Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and Kyle Connor, along with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Neal Pionk. The second group included forwards Nikolaj Ehlers and Andrew Copp, along with defencemen Josh Morrissey and Nate Schmidt.

“That was kind of part of the training camp break, and this was the first day of power-play work. We were not really looking at the power play in the first few games, just that we didn’t have the personnel to do it,” Maurice said. “You’ve got Schmidt (who) comes in. We want him on the power-play unit. We have always kind of run on the other side with Wheeler and then two righties across, that we don’t have that really for power-play guys right now but there are other ways to do it so we want to try to play with some things on the power play for the next two games and then we’re going to go into Anaheim with a completely different look because Mark’s not in the lineup.”

Scheifele still has one game remaining on a four-game suspension he received for a hit on Montreal’s Jake Evans in last year’s playoffs. Maurice added injuries will also happen over a season, so now is the time to look at a number of options.

“You’re going to have key power-play guys that get banged up over the year and we want to be able to move it around on the power play and maybe even have a little bit fun with it,” he said. “So, we want to be able to move it around a little bit more.”

The kid is good: Young forward Cole Perfetti continues to impress at camp, his high hockey IQ helping make up for his inexperience at the NHL level. With Scheifele sidelined for the season-opener in Anaheim Oct. 13, Maurice was asked if he might be tempted to look to Perfetti, the team’s 2020 10th overall pick, for some offensive help on the top line.

“Probably not in that spot. I don’t know that you’re setting him up to succeed at that point, but we would consider him,” Maurice said. “I will tell you now, that first game is going to possibly be unlike a lot in terms of the personnel that goes under the cap. And I can explain it exceptionally poorly. It was explained to me, and I only understood half of it so there’s going to be some pieces that move around that maybe aren’t hockey related. But I’m OK with any one of the guys that are left being in the opening-night lineup. I know where to put them, if that helps.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

twitter: @jeffkhamilton