Sheldon Keefe preparing for Fight Night Versus Winnipeg
The Winnipeg Jets are visiting the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night. It will be the 1st time the two teams have played against each other since Jason Spezza was suspended for kneeing Neal Pionk.
Hockey fans will likely remember all the shenanigans that happened the last time these two teams met. There was the knee-on-knee collision between Jets' Defenseman Neal Poink on Leafs' youngster Rasmum Sandin. That lead to a stint on the sidelines for Sandin and Pionk received a two game suspension.
In the same game in an out-of-character instance Jason Spezza delivered a knee to the head of Pionk in retaliation. Spezza got a six game suspension for this that was ultimately reduced to four games after an appeal. Pionk missed three games with a concussion.
And last season there was the incident between former Maple Leaf, Joe Thornton trying to chase down Nikolaj Ehlers.
With all the silliness the main focus for both teams should remain on capturing the two points. The Leafs are fighting for home ice advantage in the playoffs. They have 89 points on the season one point back of Tampa and seven back of Florida for 1st in the Atlantic.
The Jets are still clawing to punch a ticket to the playoffs. Thanks to a three game winning streak the Jets are two points back of Vegas for the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference with Dallas right there as well with 77 points and three games in hand on the Jets.
Leafs' Head Coach Sheldon Keefe must be anticipating some extra bit of spice for the game.
Looks like Keefe is going back to his veteran fourth line of Kyle Clifford�Jason Spezza�Wayne Simmonds.
The Nick Abruzzese debut may have to wait.
https://mobile.twitter.com/lukefoxjukebox/status/1509538203463737362?s=20&t=wA_dyV_RuCanlPH2DmgeXg
Getting both Clifford and Simmonds in the lineup is a definite sign that Keefe is prepared for tempers to boil over from the previous meeting.
| POLL | ||
Over Under how many fights in tonight's Jets vs Leafs Game? | ||
| 1 | 33 | 22.1 % |
| 2 | 79 | 53 % |
| 0 | 37 | 24.8 % |
| List of polls | ||
