Morning Skate Report: Jets vs Maple Leafs

WINNIPEG - The only person in the building who might be able to relate to what Winnipeg Jets (11-8-4) captain Blake Wheeler is feeling tonight might be Paul Stastny.
Wheeler will be honoured prior to puck drop tonight as he plays in his 1,000th National Hockey League game, a milestone that Stastny hit late last season.
"I've always been a low-key guy. I don't like when the attention is on me too much. I always enjoy these moments more when they're for other people than when they're for me," Stastny said with a grin. "As you get older, you realize that it can't just be hockey all the time and it's moments like these that you realize how much of an impact you have on other people, on different teammates, on the community."

It's almost poetic that Stastny will be with Wheeler as he celebrates 1,000 games. Stastny just so happened to be on the ice for Wheeler's first NHL game in 2008 as Stastny's Colorado Avalanche took on the Boston Bruins.
The two shared a friendship through a mutual friend, and Stastny offered some words of encouragement for Wheeler that night.
However, Wheeler said he was incredibly nervous and didn't want his teammates to see him speaking with the other team, so he didn't respond.
"I knew he would be nervous, but it's something that I'm sure he will always remember," Stastny said. "It happened to me, and it's things like that where your peers kind of recognize you or say something to you, it's something special."
The night will certainly be a special one at Canada Life Centre, as the Jets try to make it even more so with a victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs (17-6-2).

It won't be easy, as Toronto is 15-2-1 in their last 18 games, and are coming off a 4-3 shootout loss to the Minnesota Wild last night.
Jets head coach Paul Maurice watched every minute of that game.
"Two really high-scoring teams that scored some really strange goals, but Minny does a marvelous job of getting to the net and creating the havoc that creates these weird goals," Maurice said. "Then the ability of Toronto to even it from 3-0, come back, and be clean with some plays and it's in the back of your net because that high-end offence is always there."
Maurice won't make any changes to the Jets line-up that earned an 8-4 win over the New Jersey Devils on Friday night, with Connor Hellebuyck expected to start in goal.
Those lines will look like this:
Connor-Scheifele-Wheeler
Copp-Dubois-Ehlers
Stastny-Lowry-Vesalainen
Harkins-Toninato-Svechnikov
Morrissey-Schmidt
Dillon-Pionk
Stanley-DeMelo
The eight-goal outburst against the Devils must have felt good for a Jets team that was generating chance after chance, but for whatever reason, struggled to find the back of the net during a 1-5-1 stretch.
"You put up 94 shots in two games and don't score a goal, there's a lot of really good there. But that's too big a number not to have a puck go in the net for you," Maurice said, before shifting focus to the positives from the win over New Jersey.
"There were five rush goals, we liked the speed on that. Five rush goals, you may not get any on some nights," he said. "But three more grinding and compacted goals in the offensive zone and our net presence was much better in that game."
As a group, the Jets are still learning the balance of getting to the net, creating traffic, and being in the position to defend should a puck get knocked down.

But, the positives outweigh the negatives, especially when nearly every line was involved in the offence on Friday. That includes Stastny's line with Kristian Vesalainen and Adam Lowry, with both Stastny's line mates scoring goals.
"I was talking to Lows and Ves, sometimes you don't notice it on the scoresheet but you realize we change and the other team gets hemmed in a little bit and we score right after that," Stastny said. "Different nights you're going to have different guys score goals, different lines. But you want to chip in every way you can and be able to let Paul be able to roll lines, create that momentum, create chances."
Vesalainen's first period goal was the second tally of his NHL career, and it was a big reward for a player that Maurice felt had proven he was ready for the opportunity to play on Lowry's line.
Stastny felt the 22-year-old is building confidence with every game.
"When he's on his game, he's good at protecting the puck. Obviously he's a shooter, he knows how to find those dangerous areas," said Stastny. "I think me and Lows can read off him, let us try to do the dirty work and find him because he's the shooter on the line. But then he was also kind of leading the forecheck at different times."
All Jets lines will have to be at their best against a deep Maple Leafs squad that, for at least part of last night, loaded up a top line with their top three point producers - Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and William Nylander.
"We'd handle it the same way as the Draisatil, McDavid idea gets handled," Maurice said. "If you load up a line, you have to make a decision on who is your most effective line at both ends tonight. If it's Dubois' line because he's a big, heavy man down low, or Scheif, or it could be Lowry. You find your line."
Puck drop is set for 7 pm CT.