Maurice: No Timeline for Wheeler and Scheifele

The Winnipeg Jets will continue to live life without captain Blake Wheeler and alternate Mark Scheifele. After originally testing positive for COVID-19 on Monday morning, Blake Wheeler was placed in league-mandated COVID Protocol. He recorded a second positive test and began experiencing symptoms while on Winnipeg’s season-opening Western Conference road trip.

Discovering he was indeed COVID positive, Wheeler followed protocol and began isolating in a St. Paul, MN. hotel. On Thursday morning, Winnipeg made the announcement that top-line center Mark Scheifele would be joining Wheeler on COVID Protocol after producing two positive tests.

Unlike Wheeler, Scheifele is asymptomatic, meaning he will not require a full 10-day isolation, but rather two negative tests within a 24-hour period. Wheeler, will only be free to rejoin the Jets for the team’s October 30th matchup in San Jose.

“I don’t think there is,” head coach Paul Maurice said when asked about a timeline on the return of Wheeler and Scheifele. “I think almost the best way to think about it is it’s almost like concussion protocol. A bunch of steps have to get passed before you get back on the ice. You can’t really update those, you just wait until they hit the mile markers. You don’t know. They could be back playing 22 minutes the first day they’re available, you just don’t know. It’s that same idea. They’ll be in the line-up the day the doctors tell me they can be in the line-up and I’ll assume they’re ready to go.”

As for the rest of the lineup, the Jets will once again go with 11 forwards and seven defencemen in their game against the Nashville Predators on Saturday evening. With Nathan Beaulieu entering the lineup in the team’s home-opener on Thursday, set pairings saw some slight changes, but one that remained through the game was that of Logan Stanley and Dylan DeMelo.

“I think obviously it’s different with seven defencemen, you’re playing with lots of different guys,” Stanley said on Saturday. “But for the most part when I’ve been out there with Dylan I thought we’ve been solid, trying to improve every game. We’re watching video and communicating a lot. He makes it pretty easy to play out there, always talking and helping out, so I’ve liked our start but lots of room to improve.”

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Beaulieu, who has often been criticized for his lack of offence, certainly stepped to the plate in his first game of the season on Thursday. Putting together three blocked shots and one heavy hit on a single Jets penalty kill, the role player definitely earned his keep in that shift alone.

“It’s really good training ground for everybody,” Maurice added of his 11/7 split. “There are some good things that come out of it, too. I think by the end of the game, you’ve got 11 forwards, certainly those top-nine all feel like they got enough rhythm, they got enough icetime. I like it up front on certain nights. It’s a little bit more difficult to manage on the blue line, keeping everybody in, but with Nathan and his involvement in our penalty kill, we really like what he did.”

Set to face Nashville for the first time since February 4 of 2020, the Jets are certainly prime and ready for action against a team that has undergone some changes since their last meeting.

“There’s some new faces,” forward Adam Lowry said. “They’ve had some turnover, made some trades, losing some guys on the back end and up front. But we’ve had a pretty good rivalry with them. It’s going to be similar to the Minnesota game. There’s going to be no love lost. It’s the Central Division. The intensity…we’re expecting to be there. It’s a tough test. It’s always tough with these divisional games. We’re looking forward to it. They’ve got a back end that can skate, they’ve got some guys that can put the puck in the net up front and they’re real hard to play against. In years past, they’ve done a great job in trying to grind you down. They’ve got a couple of guys that can fly around, they go to the net and they generate a lot of zone time. We’re looking forward to playing them again.”

But according to the coach, 2021-22 is a brand new season, and all past history goes out the door. The slate is wiped clean and its Jets against Predators 6:00 PM in Winnipeg.

“I don’t know that the rivalry is what it used to be,” he said. “I think we all took that year and a half pause and kind of forgot about everybody, each other. I think the style of game will. Wild are playing a physical game, we want to get back to ours, and Nashville is playing a physical game. They want to finish all their checks, they’ll drive the intensity of the game up, we’ve shown the ability to match that and excel in it. I expect that kind of game, for sure.”