Several players made their final cases for roster spots for opening day during the Winnipeg Jets second straight preseason win on Saturday against the Calgary Flames.
As he has all preseason, Nic Petan looked great and at this point, would be a shock to see sent down to the American Hockey League. Also helping Petan is the unfortunate injury suffered by Mathieu Perreault, who left the game holding his left knee. If Perreault is out for any period of time, you would think that would only strengthen Petan’s chances to make the team, although losing Perreault would obviously be a big blow to the Jets.
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Petan is one of the six players fighting for the final four forward spots. Andrew Copp is pretty much a lock for the fourth centre spot and Nikolaj Ehlers has likely earned himself at the very least a nine-game audition with the big club. That leaves, in my count, Anthony Peluso, J.C. Lipon, and Thomas Raffl (on a professional tryout offer) to battle for the final spot.
The latter two have made cases to stick this preseason but defying some logic, it’s hard to see management putting Peluso on waivers. Getting back to Perreault, his injury could be an even bigger boon for Raffl, who remains as an intriguing piece as when the Jets offered him a tryout before camp. It seems silly the Jets would cut bait on a player like Raffl to hang onto Peluso, but, yeah.
On the defensive side, Ben Chiarot had another great preseason game, scoring his third goal of the early schedule helping the Jets to the 3-2 win. Chiarot emerged last season as a stable partner for Dustin Byfuglien and has held his own in the preseason and is a guy that could emerge as a legitimate top four defenceman this season.
A few questions linger but those will be answered soon as the Jets open their season this week against the Boston Bruins.
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