No sweat, Stuart back on ice soon

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This article was published 21/09/2014 (4027 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG Jets head coach Paul Maurice said there’s no need to panic, veteran defenceman Mark Stuart will be back on the ice soon.

Stuart missed both of the first two days on the ice at camp with a minor injury, but Maurice expressed no concern it’s going to turn into anything more than that.

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Maurice said he’s got a pretty good idea who’s going to be playing in what exhibition games, starting with Monday’s home tilt against Minnesota.

“The veteran group is pretty much set,” he said. “I can do that in the middle of the summer. I’m trying to get to a certain number with each player.

“I start at the back of training camp and work back to the front, to make sure our goaltenders get the right number of starts and do the numbers on top-end guys. The guys who are going to play a lot of minutes are somewhere between three and five (games). And I talk to them about what they think they need as well.”

The coach said there will be game opportunities for most of the 50 players at camp.

“Almost everybody here is going to play an exhibition game,” he said.

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About 2,500 attended the Jets’ first Fan Fest at the Iceplex on Saturday. The outdoor activities and viewing of practice began with the team’s 9 a.m. start to the day.

Rain hampered many of the outdoor activities once it began around noon, but most fans just piled inside, where they were able to watch the second practice group work out on two of the Iceplex’s four arenas.

— Tim Campbell