{"id":540472,"date":"2026-04-04T15:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540472\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T15:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:48:15","slug":"winnipeg-jets-vs-columbus-blue-jackets-pre-game-report-illegal-curve-hockey-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/540472\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg Jets vs Columbus Blue Jackets pre-game report \u2013 Illegal Curve Hockey"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jets used Friday as a travel day as they left Dallas disappointed from being shutout for Columbus where they will end their four-game road trip with a must-win game against the Blue Jackets. They did announce yesterday<\/a> that they had returned Danny Zhilkin to the Moose. With both Vlad Namestnikov\u00a0and\u00a0Nino Niederreiter\u00a0in regular jerseys two days back perhaps one (or both) are ready to return.<\/p>\n

The only lineup question is the status of Elias Salomonsson who left the game against the Stars on Thursday and did not return after taking a Jason Robertson reverse hit<\/a>. After the game head coach Scott Arniel said he was in concussion protocol.<\/p>\n

As important as this game is for Winnipeg it is even more so for Columbus who have now lost two straight games, have gone 4-5-1 in their last ten and are tied with Ottawa, Detroit and Philadelphia for the final wild card spot in the east.<\/p>\n

The fact it will be the first time that former head coach Rick Bowness faces his old team and mentee Scott Arniel will add some extra mojo to a game that both teams desperately need to win in order to keep their playoff aspirations alive.<\/p>\n

Skate news:<\/p>\n

Starts at 10:30 AM CT<\/p>\n

Jets projected lines & D pairs:<\/p>\n

Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo
Perfetti-Lowry-Vilardi
Koepke-Toews-Lambert
Ros\u00e9n-Barron-Ford<\/p>\n

Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Fleury-Salomonsson(?)<\/p>\n

Hellebuyck<\/p>\n

Blue Jackets projected lines & D pairs:<\/p>\n

Del Bel Belluz-Fantilli-Marchenko
Jenner-Monahan-Garland
Sillinger-Coyle-Heinen
Johnson-Lundestr\u00f6m-Wood<\/p>\n

Werenski-Fabbro
Zamula-Provorov
Mateychuk-Gudbranson<\/p>\n

Merzlikins<\/p>\n

Coach media availability:<\/p>\n

To follow.<\/p>\n

Odds:<\/p>\n

The Blue Jackets carry a slight edge at home, but not by much, especially given their recent slide. That leaves the door open for the Jets, who are more than capable of flipping the script if they can generate a bit more offensively, making this a tighter matchup than it may initially appear. \u00a0For the latest Winnipeg Jets hockey odds, visit NHL betting site Betway<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Up Next:<\/p>\n

Puck drop is at 6 PM CT. Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com<\/a> following the game for a recap of the action. You can join us on our YouTube channel for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show<\/a> around 8:40 PM CT as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jets used Friday as a travel day as they left Dallas disappointed from being shutout for Columbus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[3644,5180,897,230,5179,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-540472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-blue-jackets","9":"tag-bluejackets","10":"tag-columbus","11":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","12":"tag-columbusbluejackets","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116347234686899628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540472","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=540472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}