Practices will be rare for active Jets

PHILADELPHIA — Winnipeg Jets players reconvened here for a practice on Sunday after going their separate ways for a week to recharge the batteries before a gruelling stretch run.

They went to places like Mexico, Arizona and Florida to get a little sun, healed up some nicks and bruises and believe they are in great shape make a long playoff run this spring.

“The break was nice just to recover from the first half of the season,” said Jets winger Mathieu Perreault, who went to the Mayan Riviera with his family.

Of course, the break comes with a cost. The Jets now have eight games in the next 14 days as they will make up the games in hand they have on most other teams in the league.

That likely means there won’t be much practice time in the near future.

“I like playing a lot of games,” Perreault said. “We won’t practice much, it will just be play a game, rest up, play, rest up, play. For me, I love it that way.”

Jets coach Paul Maurice said there are things that can be done that don’t include hard work on the ice on non-game days.

“Our schedule demands that we pay more attention to our recovery than the practices,” Maurice said. “So, we’ll do more video, we’ll do almost no systems work on the ice other than some power-play stuff and some things that we maybe do with the puck. But we’ll do absolutely no grinding on the ice and try to save it for the games.”