Winnipeg Jets’ Nino Niederreiter sidelined by gash from skate

The Winnipeg Jets will be short a forward for the next week or so.

Nino Niederreiter is out for the time being after getting stitches to repair a cut on his leg from a skate.

Niederreiter left Monday’s win over the Los Angeles Kings in the third period after taking a skate blade to the back of his lower calf on a faceoff.

“Nino’s probably out for about a week,” Jets head coach Rick Bowness told reporters after Wednesday’s practice. “Hopefully not longer than that. But he took a pretty good gash in the back of his leg, so there’s some stitches in there that are going to require time to heal.

“It’s a pretty deep gash. It could have been a lot worse had it gone any deeper, so the worst-case scenario, this is the probably the best one.”

It would have been a whole different story if Niederreiter hadn’t been wearing the cut-resistant socks at the time of the incident.

“Those socks probably saved him,” Bowness said. “Listen, the blades are so sharp out there today, I think every player should be wearing those and the wrist bands as well.”

Niederreiter’s spot in the lineup will be taken by Tyler Toffoli after he missed their last game with an illness.

He practiced on their third line on Wednesday as Bowness doesn’t want to mess with a good thing after the newly-formed second line scored four times against the Kings. So Cole Perfetti will get another crack in the top-six with Kyle Connor and Sean Monahan after his three-point effort.

“I’m not going to take him off that line now,” said Bowness. “He’s earned it. We told him when you get back in we’ll try to get you more ice time with the top-six. He took full advantage of it, so we’ll go right back with it again.”

The Jets can clinch a playoff spot with a win over the Calgary Flames on Thursday to close out the homestand.

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