Scheifele named NHL’s Second Star of the Week after weekend drama

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This article was published 17/12/2018 (2455 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LOS ANGELES — The offence keeps coming for Mark Scheifele. And so do the accolades from the NHL.

Scheifele was named the league’s Second Star of the Week Monday after leading the league in points over that time with five goals and six assists in four games, all victories by the Winnipeg Jets. His strong stretch of play included scoring overtime winning goals in consecutive games against Chicago last Friday and Tampa Bay on Sunday.

The 25-year-old from Kitchener, Ont., is up to 46 points in 33 regular-season games (21 goals, 25 assists) and sits fifth overall in NHL scoring. He’s on a five-game streak dating back to a Dec. 9 win over Philadelphia, with 14 points (5 goals, 9 assists) in that span.

He will look to continue the streak when the Jets begin a three-game road trip Tuesday night in Los Angeles against the Kings.

This is already the third time this season Scheifele has been chosen as one of the NHL stars. He got top honours for the week of Dec. 3, and was the Second Star the week of Oct. 29.

Alex Ovechkin was named First Star this week after scoring seven times in three games, including back-to-back hat tricks for the Washington sniper. Buffalo’s Jack Eichel was named Third Star after scoring five goals and adding four assists in four games.

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Nikolaj Ehlers has shown he can score goals in a variety of dazzling ways. But even he was surprised a bit by his latest effort — the tying goal in Sunday night’s game against Tampa Bay in which he went airborne before putting the puck in the net.

“I didn’t think too much. I just tried to dive and get the puck into the net,” he explained of how he picked up a juicy bounce that came off the back boards after Scheifele ripped a shot from the slot wide of the net.

Ehlers was asked if he’s ever dreamed about scoring that kind of goal.

“I think you dream a lot of a bunch of goals but they’re mostly Stanley Cup-winning goals, right?” he replied with a smirk.

Ehlers has been doing plenty of scoring lately following a slow start to his season. He’s now up to 12 goals and 12 assists in 33 regular-season games, including seven goals and seven assists in his past 11 games.

The bump in production has coincided with being moved up to play on the top line with Scheifele and Blake Wheeler for long stretches of time, although he occasionally flips spots with winger Kyle Connor and goes back to the line with Bryan Little and Patrik Laine.

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It appears Winnipeg Jets prospect Kristian Vesalainen is going to take a pass on the upcoming World Junior Hockey Championship.

Reports out of Finland this past weekend say the 19-year-old winger has informed officials he will remain with Jokerit of the KHL rather than join the national team. Vesalainen represented his country last year in the prestigious international event, which is traditionally held over the Christmas holidays.

The 24th-overall pick of the 2017 NHL drat has three goals and two assists in seven games since leaving North America last month to play for his hometown team in the KHL, Europe’s top league

Vesalainen exercised an out clause in his contract, allowing him to return to Europe after he’d been assigned by the Jets to the Manitoba Moose. He had one assist in five NHL games, and three goals and five assists in eight games in the AHL.

His three-year entry level deal will now slide to begin next season, when he won’t have the option of playing anywhere else but within the Jets organization.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg