With the countdown to the regular season down to its final hours, all that Paul Maurice will have to do is put the finishing touches on his line-up before taking on the St. Louis Blues at the newly renamed Enterprise Center.
Expectations will be high for this Jets team, higher than they’ve ever been before, coming off a playoff run to the Western Conference final, with most of the core intact. Of the 19 players who suited up for game five of last year’s final game, all the forwards except Joel Armia and Paul Stastny are back. Another notable omission from last season’s roster is defenseman Toby Enstrom, who announced his retirement from the NHL during the offseason.
With only a few holes in the roster to fill, building a line-up for Maurice can’t have been too difficult. After all, if something ain’t broke, why fix it? And if the preseason was any indication that things aren’t broken, the Jets should be all set to dominate once again.
That being said, in today’s article we’ll be looking at what we can expect in the line-up when Jets head onto the ice for their first game of the regular season.
Forwards
The Jets’ first line will remain the same: Mark Scheifele will play the middle between captain Blake Wheeler and freshman sniper Kyle Connor. This line was arguably one of the best in all of hockey last season. At even strength, they played a total of 54 games together, scoring 30 times. After putting up a career high of 68 assists during last season’s campaign, Wheeler should be poised to reach that number again, especially with elite snipers playing with him for a full season at even strength.
The second line is where things get a little tricky. At the beginning of last season, the second line was centred by Bryan Little, with Patrik Laine and Nik Ehlers flanking him. Two-thirds of that line remained intact throughout training camp, with one small change: Mathieu Perrault took the place of Nik Ehlers. How long this combination lasts is uncertain, but it will be contingent upon how well Ehlers plays alongside Jack Roslovic and rookie Kristian Vesalainen.
Needless to say, if the line combos used in training camp are any indication of what Maurice uses on opening night, the second and third lines would look like this. Line two: Perrault and Laine, centred by Bryan Little. Line three: Ehlers and Vesalainen, centred by Jack Roslovic.
The play of Patrik Laine with Perrault on his wing will be something to keep an eye on. Perrault, less of a shooter than Ehlers, is a pass-first type of player. Throw Little in there and you have two good passers on the ice with one of the league’s most elite snipers in Laine.
Two words that sum up the third line are youth and speed. Ehlers is one of the quickest north-south skaters in the league, Roslovic had lots of success using his speed in the middle of the ice at the AHL level, and Vesalainen is big, fast, and can shoot the puck and drive the net. These three kids are going to be fun to watch.
But should the Jets need to send Vesalainen down for a bit more seasoning in the minors, wingers Brendan Lemieux and Marko Dano could easily step up. Dano had a very impressive training camp and he’s finally showing spurts of becoming the player Jets fans were hoping for when they acquired him from Chicago in 2016.
The fourth line will be the same trio that played so well all of last season: Brandon Tanev and Andrew Copp, centred by Adam Lowry. That trio was among the Jets’ most effective lines analytically, with a shot attempt percentage of about 60 percent.
Defence
There are little to no changes to report on defence so far. Besides Byfuglien losing his long-time sidekick in Enstrom, the remainder of the defensive core remains intact—for the most part. Morrissey will still be playing alongside Trouba, and Myers will still be lining up with Kulikov.
As for who steps in as Dustin Byfuglien’s partner, Joe Morrow really made the most of his opportunity during preseason play, so he’s the man to watch.
The Jets tried putting Myers on the left side of Byfuglien, but that experiment yielded no results. Morrow looked very good, and he seemed to add a bit more speed to his game over the offseason, too.
All in all, the Jets look to have a moderately retooled group that could go even further than last year’s team.
