Kane scheduled to skate soon

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2014 (3985 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TWO weeks after left-winger Evander Kane was sidelined with a knee injury, Jets coach Paul Maurice said there is encouraging news on the sniper’s condition.

Kane is progressing ahead of schedule and could be back on the ice — at least on his own — by this weekend.

“It’s two weeks,” Maurice said. “Evander Kane is progressing quite well to the point where we have an expectation that in the next few days, he’ll be back on IR skates. It’s what we call them, non-main-group skates so nobody runs into a guy.

“But he’ll be back on the ice, we think, sometime this weekend and after that, it’s as much about strength and healing time and things like that so that’s kind of positive news about him.”

After Kane went down about three minutes into the season opener in Arizona, nobody around the Jets was speculating about any optimistic scenario. But now a return in November seems more than possible.

Stay clear of Scheifele

ON Thursday, centre Mark Scheifele was at the centre of another friendly fire incident.

This one did not turn out as badly as the Evander Kane story; Kane collided with Scheifele in that first game.

In practice at the MTS Centre Thursday, Scheifele was in a tangle of players and belted the puck hard out of the corner but on his follow-through, his stick went straight into the throat of teammate T.J. Galiardi. Galiardi was shaken briefly, but was able to complete practice.

Also Thursday, left-winger Anthony Peluso was absent, missing the day with a minor upper-body issue, Maurice said.

Likes the youngsters

ONE of coach Maurice’s favourite subjects came up after Thursday’s practice — his youngsters.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Mike McIntyre | On Sports

Thursdays

Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter.

Sign up for Mike McIntyre | On Sports

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

His answers are rarely short on this matter.

“Two really young centremen, both with good size, different styles of skillsets but both with a real good understanding of the game,” he said, starting out talking about Mark Scheifele and Adam Lowry.

“So you’re not in a teaching curve for two or three years. They get this stuff pretty quick. Scheif has a certain offensive creativity and Adam clearly has a smart defensive grasp of the game… Scheifs for me has been good, pretty even, and Lowry has been exactly what you’d hoped, maybe expected, and he’s been really good the last two games at centre but Jacob Trouba these last two games, he’s not for me just back to where he was last year, he’s starting to look stronger on the ice. So those three guys are key pieces.”

— Campbell