Jets' Wellwood eager for action

Cleared for contact after recovering from appendectomy

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Kyle Wellwood spent two years on The Rock, but he won’t be going back to Newfoundland this weekend with the Winnipeg Jets.

The 28-year-old centre, who is back practising after having his appendix removed four weeks ago, will be part of the Jets squad that will play an exhibition game on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Approximately 20 players will go to North Carolina, while the other 30 or so will leave on Friday for Nashville, where they will battle the Predators on Saturday. The group that goes to Nashville will then carry on to St. John’s for an exhibition game against the Ottawa Senators on Monday afternoon.

Wellwood, who scored 58 goals in 156 games for the AHL’s St. John’s Maple Leafs between 2003 and 2005, isn’t concerned about missing the first few days of training camp with his fourth NHL team.

“This season’s nine months long and we’re only four days into it and I’ve skated with them, so I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference,” said Wellwood, who felt strong enough for contact but wasn’t allowed to do so because of doctor’s orders.

Wellwood, who signed a one-year deal with the Jets earlier this month, should be among the team’s top nine forwards this season, but he’s not counting his chickens just yet.

“That’s going to play itself out, depending on how the team’s playing,” he said. “You gotta find roles and ways to chip in, and you can’t be sure what’s going to happen.”

Head coach Claude Noel said Thursday he finally knew which players are going where this weekend, but the team isn’t going to reveal the rosters until Friday. It doesn’t matter who plays where; the bottom line is they better play well.

“We’re going to make some stiff evaluations, and we want to see who gets past the weekend and through the weekend, because you’ve got two games and that will be pretty telling there,” Noel said.

“The teams and the levels step up. Teams are down to their numbers more so, so it’ll be good for us.”

To get his players ready for the grind, Noel took it easy on his troops Thursday. The practices were shortened, as were the off-ice workouts following the on-ice sessions.

“We have so many strained muscles and hips that we wanted to manage them intelligently,” Noel said. “There was some joy in their lives today — and coaches too, so that was good.”

Source: http://www.torontosun.com