WINNIPEG – It’s unclear how many people love the colour yellow, but for Winnipeg Jets fans, they might like it for the time being.
Mark Scheifele, Josh Morrissey and Logan Stanley were all in the yellow, non-contact jersey on Tuesday afternoon at Canada Life Centre. Scheifele hasn’t played since the first period of Game 5 after absorbing a couple of big hits, Morrissey left during the first period of Game 7 and Stanley didn’t play at all on Sunday.
“Yeah, today was the first day for Josh, so that was great. For Scheif he was on yesterday, so he’s been on, snuck it in there. so, yeah, it’s a good sign to see them out there and participating,” said Scott Arniel.
“Stan, first day today for him as well. So, yeah, all part of that, we’ll go day to day here. Obviously, we’ll see where they’re at for tomorrow. They’ve got to wake up tomorrow and see if they’ve improved from today.”
While the Jets wait to see who of the trio in yellow become available for Game 1 against the Stars on Wednesday (8:30 pm CT), they know their goaltender is back on track. Perhaps no one in the organization felt more relief when Adam Lowry sent them to the second round with his goal in double overtime than Connor Hellebuyck.
“I’m really excited. It’s a re-start for me,” said Hellebuyck.
“Who cares about what just happened? We got through it, and moving forward here I’m really excited to put my best foot forward and do my job.”
After the Blues made it 3-1 at the end of the second period on Sunday, Hellebuyck shut the door and started to look more and more like the player that is on his way to winning a third Vezina Trophy. Neal Pionk said that Hellebuyck told the team that he wouldn’t let in another goal.
“So, when he says something like that, he believes it,” said Pionk.
“And we believed him, and we knew we had to get two more for him and then we're going to do the rest from there."
Game 7 already seems like it was a week ago, but the confidence that comes with getting through an extremely tough series has to be big for Hellebuyck.
“Getting through that, and so for him, not just him, our whole group, to get through that first round is now we can maybe take a breath, move, and again, move on to the next opponent and that's Dallas,” said Arniel.
“Obviously it's going to be a big one, but I think that's just a big weight off his shoulders and now he can reset.”
Dallas went through a similar situation in Game 7 on home ice and down two goals in the third period to the Colorado Avalanche before coming back and moving on to the next round. The Stars are a big team, but it would be tough to expect that the series will be as physical as the matchup with St. Louis.
“They got three lines, real solid lines offensively. They can do things, obviously defensively well,” said Arniel.
“So, I think that it's a different sort of look to what we just saw. But yeah, we know these guys, obviously, they've been hot on our tail all year long. So, it's a great matchup.”
