Jets
Notes: The Jets couldn’t really afford some injuries on defense, it wasn’t good to begin with. But they’ve got that, which is why Niku is up and Kulikov is on the top pairing. There’s gold in them thar hills…Connor is on a bit of a heater, with six points in his last five and he absolutely murders the Hawks with five goals in 11 career games…Hellebuyck got torched by the Bolts, but everyone is these days, but in his four starts before that he’d given up six goals, including against Nashville and Toronto…
Hawks
Notes: If there’s any changes it’ll be to get Brandon Hagel into the lineup, probably ahead of Nylander but maybe Highmore…A big reason the Hawks have leveled out is they’ve sorted out the bottom of the roster, especially the third pairing. Slater Koekkoek has been a huge improvement over Dennis Gilbert, so the Hawks are no longer getting buried for a quarter to a third of the game…Caggiula also has a hand in that, who is what they thought Andrew Shaw would be…
