Poolman in tonight; Byfuglien out at least two weeks

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This article was published 11/12/2017 (2833 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Veteran Winnipeg Jets defenceman Dustin Byfuglien is expected to be out of the lineup until after Christmas with a lower-body injury suffered Saturday night in Tampa.

Byfuglien left the game in the third period and didn’t return. Coach Paul Maurice said this morning that Byfuglien is considered “week-to-week” at this point.

Tucker Poolman will take his spot in the lineup tonight as the Jets (17-8-5) look to snap a three-game winless streak (0-2-1) when they host the Vancouver Canucks (14-12-4) at Bell MTS Place. Poolman, 24, has only three NHL games under his belt and has been a healthy scratch for the past three weeks. Maurice had spoken just last week about wanting to get Poolman some game action soon — although not in this kind of scenario.

“It’s the way it is. That’s the way this always happens. Somebody gets nicked up and you get your chance. The other guys on the blue line, every one of them has been looking for a few more minutes. They’ve all felt that window of 22-25 is where their game will excel. So we’ve got lots of guys excited about the chance to play,” Maurice said this morning.

Winnipeg is expected to call up another defenceman from the Manitoba Moose as insurance, with Byfuglien joining Toby Enstrom on the injured list. Enstrom has missed more than three weeks of what is expected to be a two-month absence.

Maurice said they feel they have the depth to survive the absence of both Byfuglien and Enstrom at the same time, with Jacob Trouba, Josh Morrissey, Tyler Myers and Dmitry Kulikov all taking on bigger roles.

There is some good news on the injury front, as goalie Steve Mason could be activated off injured reserve as early as this afternoon. He has missed the past seven games with a concussion. Eric Comrie, who has played one game with the Jets this season, will be returned to the Moose when Mason is ready.

“Real close. So he’s passed that last kind of hurdle. We’ll get him through, get his heart rate down. We just want to really make sure if we’re taking him off IR, we know he’s ready to roll and can go in and back up tonight. So we’re just going to give it a couple hours here and make sure he is where we think he is,” said Maurice.

Connor Hellebuyck gets the start in goal tonight for the Jets, who face a Canucks team that has dropped two straight games and is also dealing with their own injury issues. Bo Horvat, their second-leading scorer, and Sven Baertschi, their third-leading scorer, are both out of the lineup.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg