Winnipeg Free Press https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/after-15-games-in-28-days-weary-jets- are-looking-forward-to-practice-463734873.html?k=8sUz7u Making up for lost practices By: Mike McIntyre It is one of the all-time great rants in sports history, one that spawned numerous internet memes and GIFs. Allen Iverson, then a star with the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association, delivered a sound bite for the ages when asked about his penchant for missing practices. "We’re talking about practice, man. What are we talking about? Practice? We’re talking about practice, man," an incredulous Iverson said as part of the memorable 2002 monologue in which he would go on to use the word "practice" 22 times. Well, with apologies to the hall of famer, we’re here today to talk about practice. Or, in the case of the Winnipeg Jets, the lack thereof. By our count, the Jets have had 11 practices scheduled since the beginning of November. But only four of those proceeded as planned, the last one occurring Nov. 23. Three others became sparsely attended optional skates and the remaining four were cancelled by the coaching staff. Now, nobody is accusing the Jets of being lazy. They just wrapped up a gruelling part of their schedule in which they played 15 games in 28 days, spanning all four time zones. They went 9- 4-2 during that span, so they’ve clearly been doing plenty of good things. Following Monday’s 5-1 win against the Vancouver Canucks, the Jets enjoyed a day off on Tuesday. With their first back-to-back days without a game in more than a month, they’ll return to the ice today for their first team practice in almost three weeks. But unlike Iverson, several players say they’re actually looking forward to it. Veteran centre Bryan Little said some bad habits have started to creep into their game, magnified during last week’s disappointing road trip, when they went 0-2-1 in Detroit, Sunrise, Fla., and Tampa. "It’s always nice to get a good practice in once in a while. We’re trying to manage rest right now. When we do get a practice in it’ll probably be beneficial for us, because we haven’t had one in so long," Little said on Monday. "You get to work on things you might need tuning up, and we’ve got a couple things we could work on right now." Defenceman Josh Morrissey said getting enough rest and avoiding rust is a bit of a balancing act. In a month of games every second day and occasional back-to-back contests, players have turned to off-ice teaching to help keep them sharp. "On off days and days between games when we’re playing every second day, sometimes it’s best just to get the rest," he said. "Sometimes you miss out on some practice time. That’s where we have to take advantage of some video and some of the teaching we can do off the ice." Following Monday’s win, head coach Paul Maurice said the past month has been about survival for his squad. While there have been some bumps along the way, he doesn’t believe the lack of practice is to blame. "I think where we’ve been a little off at times is with our hands... we’re not hitting the net as much as we’d like," he said. "We’ve been a bit loopy in some of our defence. I think maybe that’s sometimes in your legs, stopping and starting and grinding. But none of it is far enough off for me to say that’s the deciding factor. So we just deal with it the best that we can and we keep them off the ice a little bit. The guys will tell you they don’t miss the practising." Maurice said his team will have spent 35 or 36 days either on an a plane or on the road in a block between Nov. 5 and Christmas, when they’ll already pass the halfway point of their road schedule. Things lighten up in the new year, with plenty of home games, including 10 straight at Bell MTS Place in February. "Everybody gets tired, everybody gets fatigued. We’re actually happy about our schedule," Maurice said. "It’s still way better than it was a year ago when we did this for two months with six sets of back-to-backs at 12 time-zone changes. So I’m not complaining about the schedule. Because I’ve seen it be a lot worse. It’s just what we have to deal with in Winnipeg." Little said fatigue is certainly an issue. "(It) feels like we’ve been on the road constantly for the last month-and-a-half," he said. That might explain why the Jets are winless in their past five games away from home (0-3-2). Fortunately, they’ve been red-hot in Winnipeg, winning seven in a row and collecting points in 11 straight (10-0-1). "I don’t know what it is. We don’t really talk about it. We have that energy at home," he said. Winnipeg will try to keep that streak going when they host the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday night. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/jets-defencemen-step-up-when-two-go- down-463742063.html Defencemen step up when two stalwarts go down By: Mike McIntyre It’s far from an ideal situation for the Winnipeg Jets, with veteran defencemen Dustin Byfuglien and Toby Enstrom on the shelf with injuries, but the first test without the big-minute blue-liners went about as smoothly as possible. The Jets held the Vancouver Canucks to just one goal on 26 shots in Monday night’s victory, with the rest of the defence stepping up to play bigger roles. It was the kind of collective effort that will be needed going forward if they are to maintain their hot start to the season. Tyler Myers led the team with 23:24 in ice time and continued his run of strong play, chipping in an assist and going plus-three. Right behind him was Jacob Trouba, who logged 23:14 on the ice and dished out a team-high four hits. Josh Morrissey was also relied on more than usual, playing 21:21 and scoring a beautiful goal on a three-on-one rush. He and Trouba were matched up for much of the night against Vancouver’s top line of twins Henrik and Daniel Sedin and Brock Boeser, the team’s leading scorer. Myers’ partner, Dmitry Kulikov, scored the game’s opening goal and played 18:31, while the new-look third pairing of Ben Chiarot (15:51) and rookie Tucker Poolman (13:33) more than held their own against the Canucks. For Poolman, it was just his fourth NHL game and the first in two months. "I thought they were good. Tucker looked smooth, he didn’t show any nervousness out there. He moved the puck, he played the same game that he played for us at the start of the year, so I liked that a lot," Jets head coach Paul Maurice said following the game. "I thought Morrissey and Trouba got stronger as the game went on. Those guys got some miles on them, they play against the other team’s best every night and it’s a challenge every night. I thought those guys got stronger, like our team did." Morrissey said everyone realizes they need to pick up the slack, especially with Byfuglien expected to be out until at least after Christmas with a lower-body injury suffered Saturday in Tampa Bay against the Lightning. Enstrom has been sidelined more than three weeks and is at least another month from returning. "You can’t replace (Byfuglien), obviously, and that’s not what we are going to try and do as a back end. We all want to pick up some of those minutes. I thought, as a whole, (Poolman) came in and played awesome, and that’s one of those things where you try to pick up those minutes. Everyone has to try and do a little bit more and help collectively as a back end," Morrissey said. The Jets will likely recall another defenceman from the Manitoba Moose in the coming days to give them some additional depth, as they currently have no other healthy bodies for their blue line. Options could include off-season free agent signing Cam Schilling, who has put up three goals and 17 assists for the Moose this season. That puts him third among all American Hockey League defencemen in scoring and his plus-21 leads the league. Veteran Julian Melchiori is another possibility, having previously been with the Jets. He’s got four goals and eight assists. Rookie Sami Niku is also off to a terrific start, with two goals and 14 assists, which is second- best among first-year defencemen in the AHL. Winnipeg Sun http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/mason-not-messing-with-brain-injury Mason not messing with brain injury By Paul Friesen Steve Mason was playing with his daughter, Tuesday, when he took some time to talk about the second concussion of his career. That family moment had everything to do with what Mason and I talked about for the next eight minutes. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Winnipeg Jets goalie had been removed from the injured reserve list and cleared to play again.