After losing the first three games of their season-long six game road swing, a trip back north across the 49th parallel proved to be just what the Winnipeg Jets needed.
Five different players scored a goal for the Jets as they picked up a 5-3 win in Vancouver Tuesday night to snap their losing skid.
The Jets notched just two goals in the first three games of the trip but exploded for three markers in the first period to get their offence back on track.
“Looked a lot more like how we want to play for 60 minutes,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “They were quick and they were obviously attacking, but I thought we did a real good job of trying to really protect the guts of the ice – 200 feet coming all the way up the ice.”
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The Jets lost the services of defenceman Haydn Fleury to an upper-body injury in the second period, but Josh Morrissey logged nearly 25 minutes of ice time, scoring once while also adding two assists.
“Everybody wanted to step up when you lose a few games in a row,” said Morrissey. “I felt like everybody raised their intensity level. As a leader on the team, you want to be part of leading that charge.”
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After a scoreless second period, the Jets scored in the first minute of the third to extend the lead. The Canucks pulled within one with under two minutes left, but the Jets quickly scored into the empty net to lock down the win.
“Just faster, quicker, better execution,” said Jets captain Adam Lowry. “I liked our battle. I liked our compete. I liked us getting pucks below the goal line, sustaining some shifts. Obviously, we let them get back in it near the end, but I thought we did a real good job of protecting the middle. When we needed him, Helly (Connor Hellebuyck) made some huge stops for us.”
The Jets were 0-for-16 on the power play in their last four and a half games but scored twice on four chances with the man advantage against the Canucks.
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“You need your power play to go,” Arniel said. “Sometimes you do create the chances, sometimes you get opportunities and the puck isn’t going in. We had some good meetings this morning. Davis (Payne) talked to them more about sort of our details of our power play and I thought tonight they were bang on.”
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The game began with almost five uninterrupted minutes of hockey before the Jets opened the scoring at the 4:57 mark.
The puck found its way to Morrissey at the point in the Vancouver end and his attempt on goal redirected off the skate of Jonathan Toews and past Thatcher Demko for Toews’ third of the season.
Winnipeg stayed in front for just over five minutes before Vancouver drew level.
After Parker Ford turned the puck over at the Canucks’ blue line, Quinn Hughes took it back up the ice and into the Winnipeg zone. He and Kiefer Sherwood executed a perfect give-and-go before Sherwood shot the puck past Connor Hellebuyck for his 11th of the season, tying him for fourth in the league in goals to go along with one solitary assist.
The Canucks grabbed the lead less than two minutes later on the power play. With Dylan DeMelo in the box for tripping, Winnipeg cleared the puck down the ice but Hughes hit Jake DeBrusk with a good stretch pass before DeBrusk whipped a shot from the faceoff dot that beat Hellebuyck short side.
Less than three minutes later, Winnipeg cashed in on their first power play chance of the game. Vancouver had a chance to clear the puck but Sherwood’s clearing attempt ricocheted off a teammate and right to Morrissey at the point. His blast deflected off the stick of a Canucks defender and beat Demko high to level the score, snapping an 0-for-16 drought for Winnipeg’s power play.
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The chaotic back-and-forth continued when the Jets regained the lead just 15 seconds after the Morrissey goal. Adam Lowry’s centering attempt went off Nino Niederreiter, stationed in the crease near Demko, and trickled across the goal line. The assist for Lowry was his first point of the season.
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Winnipeg kept that 3-2 lead going to the second despite being outshot 12-8 in the opening 20 minutes. Demko’s night also ended after allowing three goals on eight shots in his first game in over a week due to injury, giving way to Kevin Lankinen for the rest of the game.
Vancouver came close to tying the game a couple of times around the midway point of the second. DeBrusk had the first try when he got the puck in stride and tried to beat Hellebuyck in close but was denied by the left pad of the Hart Trophy winner. A couple minutes later, Filip Hronek hit the crossbar from the point, but the puck stayed out of the net.
Not long after that, the Jets got their second power play of the period and Mark Scheifele had a great chance to double his team’s lead but a one-timer on a good feed from Cole Perfetti was denied by a sprawling Lankinen.
Winnipeg outshot the Canucks 13-10 in the middle frame as they maintained their 3-2 lead heading to the third period, where they had just over a minute of power play time carrying over from a Drew O’Connor minor late in the second and took full advantage.
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Gabriel Vilardi got the puck at the point in the Canucks end and sent a pass down the half-wall to Kyle Connor before cutting to the middle of the ice. Connor sent it to Morrissey at the point, got it back and then gave it to Vilardi in the slot before Vilardi spun around and sent a wicked backhand top-shelf to make it 4-2.
Vancouver came within a whisker of their third goal of the night when a Brock Boeser shot trickled past Hellebuyck, leading to the puck sitting more than halfway across the goal line before Hellebuyck fell backwards on top of the puck. It’s possible that the puck fully crossed the goal line after Hellebuyck landed on it but the puck was not visible, so no goal was awarded on the play.
The Canucks pulled the goalie for an extra attacker with more than three minutes left and Winnipeg had a couple of near misses at the empty net before Boeser scored on a rebound in the slot with 90 seconds left to make it a 4-3 game.
But that was as close as Vancouver would get as Alex Iafallo, playing in his 600th game, iced the game with an empty netter with 47 seconds left.
Hellebuyck turned aside 30 shots to earn the win.
Winnipeg’s road trip continues on Thursday night when they head back to the U.S. to visit Seattle. The puck drops just after 9 p.m. with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB beginning at 7 p.m.
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