{"id":434781,"date":"2026-01-29T19:31:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/434781\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T19:31:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:31:25","slug":"nhl-game-preview-winnipeg-jets-at-tampa-bay-lightning-with-line-combinations-01-29-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/434781\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Game Preview: Winnipeg Jets at Tampa Bay Lightning with Line Combinations (01\/29\/2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Conrad Jack (Inside The Rink)<\/p>\n

Winnipeg Jets (21-24-7) at Tampa Bay Lightning (33-14-4)
Venue: Benchmark International Arena
Date: Tonight \u2013 Thursday, January 29
Time: 6:00 pm CST
How To Watch: TSN3
Radio: 680 CJOB<\/p>\n

Purchase tickets via Ticketmaster<\/a><\/p>\n

Winnipeg Jets News & Notes:<\/p>\n

The Winnipeg Jets are coming into Tampa Bay with a win on their side, and they\u2019ll look hand the red-hot Lightning a loss tonight. Winnipeg has gotten Neal Pionk back skating, but he\u2019s not out of a non-contact jersey, and he\u2019s just started participating in line rushes in practice. Winnipeg is 6-2-2 in their last 10 games played and remains eight points out of a wildcard spot.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Lightning News & Notes:<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay faces the Winnipeg Jets tonight as the Lightning look to gain more ground in the Atlantic Division standings. They\u2019re expected to get Ryan McDonagh back in the lineup, and they made space by re-assigning Simon Lundmark and Jakob Pelletier to the AHL. Tampa Bay is 8-1-1 in their last 10 games played and remains at the top of the Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n

Winnipeg Jets Projected Lines<\/p>\n

Connor \u2013 Scheifele \u2013 Vilardi
Perfetti \u2013 Toews \u2013 Iafallo
Niederreiter \u2013 Lowry \u2013 Namestnikov
Koepke \u2013 Barron \u2013 Pearson<\/p>\n

Morrissey \u2013 DeMelo
Samberg \u2013 Salomonsson
Stanley \u2013 Schenn<\/p>\n

Hellebuyck
Comrie<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines<\/p>\n

Hagel \u2013 Cirelli \u2013 Kucherov
Guentzel \u2013 James \u2013 Goncalves
Girgensons \u2013 Gourde \u2013 Holmberg
Bjorkstrand \u2013 Paul \u2013 Finley<\/p>\n

Moser \u2013 Raddysh
McDonagh \u2013 Cernak
Carlile \u2013 Crozier<\/p>\n

Vasilevskiy
Johansson<\/p>\n

Players To Watch:<\/p>\n

Winnipeg Jets<\/p>\n

Gabriel Vilardi is back on the Jets\u2019 top line with Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor, and it\u2019s expected that the trio will certainly be looking to push the Lightning to the brink tonight.<\/p>\n

Elias Salomonsson has looked better as each game passes, and he\u2019ll look to perform big tonight against the Lightning as the Jets look to string together wins.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Lightning<\/p>\n

Nikita Kucherov is always a big-name player for Tampa Bay, and his many seasons of success with the Lightning further add to Kucherov\u2019s impact against opponents.<\/p>\n

Andrei Vasilevskiy aims to be the biggest difference maker against Winnipeg tonight as the Lightning aim to gain more ground in the Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n

Next game<\/p>\n

Winnipeg Jets \u2013 January 31 vs Florida Panthers
Tampa Bay Lightning \u2013 February 1 vs Boston Bruins<\/p>\n

\tDiscover more from Inside The Rink<\/p>\n

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Conrad Jack<\/a><\/p>\n

Conrad Jack is a Manitoba-based media credentialed sportswriter covering the Winnipeg Jets (NHL) and the Manitoba Moose (AHL). He also covers the NHL Draft and World Junior Championship for ITR. He also covers league-wide news in his weekly series ‘Saturday’s notebook’ and through individual articles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo Credit: Conrad Jack (Inside The Rink) Winnipeg Jets (21-24-7) at Tampa Bay Lightning (33-14-4)Venue: Benchmark International ArenaDate:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5121],"tags":[3345,243,2095,3937,5,6863,78,1290,3522,2001,4,5573,1335,4085,19158,92,77,18,5288],"class_list":{"0":"post-434781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg-jets","8":"tag-2025-26-nhl-season","9":"tag-andrei-vasilevskiy","10":"tag-elias-salomonsson","11":"tag-gabriel-vilardi","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-jakob-pelletier","14":"tag-jets","15":"tag-kyle-connor","16":"tag-mark-scheifele","17":"tag-neal-pionk","18":"tag-nhl","19":"tag-nhl-game-preview","20":"tag-nikita-kucherov","21":"tag-ryan-mcdonagh","22":"tag-simon-lundmark","23":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","24":"tag-winnipeg","25":"tag-winnipeg-jets","26":"tag-winnipegjets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}