Jets prepare for Canucks; Samberg out week-to-week

WINNIPEG - The depth of the Winnipeg Jets defence will face another stiff test, as more bad news arrived on Wednesday morning.
Dylan Samberg, who has been a steady presence on the Jets blue line since playing his first NHL game on Jan. 13 in Detroit, wasn't on the ice at practice Wednesday, and the news from interim head coach Dave Lowry wasn't good.
"He is going to be week-to-week with an upper-body injury," said Lowry, following the 30-minute skate. "I think this is something that has been lingering, and he aggravated it this week."
So, Samberg joins a list of defenceman unavailable to the Jets, a list that includes Josh Morrissey (COVID-19 protocol), Dylan DeMelo (upper-body injury), and Logan Stanley.
Add it all up, and Johnathan Kovacevic could be in line to make his NHL debut on Thursday against the Canucks.
In fact, it doesn't take much math at all.

"We had six (defencemen) out there today and we had six healthy bodies," said Lowry, with Kovacevic being one of those bodies.

The 24-year-old Kovacevic took warm-up on Tuesday but didn't play. He's been as solid as they come for the Manitoba Moose this season with 14 points in 32 games.
At 6'5" and 218 pounds, he can patrol the right side and use his size to win puck battles in the Jets zone.
He's been paired with Ville Heinola at times this season at the American Hockey League level. So the challenge for Lowry at this point is deciding if that's a pair he wants to use against the Canucks.
"You look at your opposition and you look at how they have their lines aligned," said Lowry. "That's one way to manage it. It depends on our match-ups and what we feel will give us the best chance to win tomorrow."
The line rushes in Wednesday's practice looked like this:
Connor-Dubois-Perfetti
Copp-Scheifele-Wheeler
Stastny-Lowry-Poganski
Vesalainen-Harkins-Svechnikov
Reichel
Dillon-Schmidt
Beaulieu-Pionk
Heinola-Kovacevic
Winnipeg will enter Thursday's game against the Canucks, a team they've been able to secure just a single point against in two meetings in British Columbia this season, with a five-game winless skid.

The Jets have outshot and out-chanced the Canucks in both contests, but generating offensive chances hasn't been an issue for the Jets.
The focus today was on their own zone.
"Structurally we need to work on some things and make our reads more clean all over the ice - neutral zone, D-zone," said Kyle Connor. "It makes it easier if we identify what our reads are for me to read off (Pierre-Luc Dubois), read off Perfetti, if I know he's in a certain spot, it makes my job way easier. That narrows down that half second off whether they're going to get a break on a two-on-one or not."
Every 10-15 games or so, defenceman Nate Schmidt takes a look at the standings. What he saw on Wednesday wasn't ideal, but he knows the Jets have it in the room to turn things around.
"I watched the St. Louis Blues be in last place in February," Schmidt said, referencing their 2019 Stanley Cup victory. "It can certainly be done."

Winnipeg is five points out of the second wildcard spot, currently held by the Dallas Stars thanks to four consecutive wins.
"There is a log jam there," he said. "The good part is we have a lot of games coming up. When you get into a rhythm, and these games start coming on, you can find that you can rattle off some games. Right now, when you look at where we are - you're not in. You have to string together games. That's really what it comes down to."
In order to get on a similar role, Schmidt and his teammates believe it comes down to clean execution in the defensive zone as well as communication - especially with all the players coming in and out of the line-up.
"That's on the ice, it's off the ice," said Schmidt. "If you get a guy to feel comfortable in his system, talking with him and understanding 'hey when you do this, I'm going to be here with you,' so he doesn't have to think about that."
They can't make up all those points in the standings at once, but what they can do is pour all their efforts into the season series finale with the Canucks.
After all, that's what's in their control.
"The biggest thing is, if you look at the big picture you always get yourself in trouble," said Lowry. "You have to stay current and play that day. I know it's cliche but those are the facts. If you look five games down the road, you forget what you have to do today."