Jets prove hotter than flames with decisive home win

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This article was published 09/01/2017 (3187 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets may be slightly less flashy without their fabulous Finn, but they showed Monday night they can still be an effective bunch at crunch time.

With Connor Hellebuyck making 28 saves and some timely offence from a pair of veteran stalwarts, the Jets won their third game in four starts with a 2-0 decision over the Calgary Flames at the MTS Centre.

The Jets, fourth in the Central Division, improved to 20-20-3 while the Flames, fourth in the Pacific, fell to 22-19-2. Winnipeg hosts the Montreal Canadiens Wednesday night. Game time is 6:30 p.m.

“Shots are fun and that game was fun,” said Hellebuyck, who posted his third shutout of the season. “The way the guys are playing in front of me made it even more fun because they were controlling the shots and making it easy on me.”

Playing their first game without the services of 18-year-old right-winger Patrik Laine, sidelined indefinitely with a concussion after absorbing a massive mid-ice hit in Buffalo Saturday, the Jets kept their approach basic, relying on a steady Hellebuyck and some tidy play in the defensive zone and before their offence burst to life.

Dustin Byfuglien got the Jets on the board at 10:21 of the first period, taking a pass from Drew Stafford and surging to the net before ripping a shot over Flames goaltender Chad Johnson. Johnson finished the game with 25 saves.

Winnipeg captain Blake Wheeler scored a crucial insurance goal 3:16 into the third, grabbing the puck after it was mishandled by Calgary blue-liner TJ Brodie just inside the blue line before going in untouched and zipping a shot past Johnson. It was Wheeler’s 12th goal of the season and his fourth in 11 games. He has 11 points during that stretch.

“It was a really good, patient game, you know,” said Wheeler. “We knew where we were at, had some guys that battled tonight and like I said, we liked where our game was at. We weren’t panicked because of what happened in Buffalo. It happened at a bad time, we wanted to focus on the good things we were doing because I think we like where is.”

Winnipeg defenceman Jacob Trouba continued his excellent play and his club was particularly good in limiting Calgary sniper Johnny Gaudreau to three shots.

“I think we kept bringing our game to a higher level every period and thought we put a pretty complete game,” said Trouba.

“It all starts with our forwards. When their D has time to move up the ice and find their forwards when they’re crossing the ice, that’s when they’re tough to defend. So I think the forwards did a really good job, taking away their time and space and kinda keeping the gap between their forwards and their defencemen as tight as we could.”

The Flames struggled with Winnipeg’s gap control but compounded their problems with frequent puck-handling errors.

“I think it was a little bit of both,” said Calgary head coach Glen Gulutzan. “We looked a little sloppy, like we didn’t execute as well as we did in the past. We certainly didn’t do that today. I thought they defended well though, so maybe it can be a little bit of that. At the end of the day, we didn’t execute some plays and they did, and won.”

One of Hellebuyck’s best stops came on Gaudreau in the final minute of the middle period when he pokechecked the all-star after he had been sent in alone with a terrific stretch pass from Dougie Hamilton.

Hellebuyck clinched the shutout with a big glove stop on forward Michael Frolik with 12.5 seconds left in the third period.

“The puck didn’t move easily for either team tonight, and I don’t think anyone necessarily had the advantage,” said Jets head coach Paul Maurice. “We built over the course of the game, quite a bit better in the second than in our first and strong enough in our third. And good for Connor, he had some good saves in there. I don’t think he was overworked.

“He needs to have an opportunity to have a game like that, too, where he was nice and clean and tidy defensively, kind of like our team.”

Maurice appreciated the effort but recognized some fine-tuning is in order.

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“When we cut that video there will be positional things, a lot of passes that you’d like to have had on the tape and a little quicker jump and more speed but there’s gonna be an awful lot of really good sticks, pucks that got knocked down through the seam,” he said.

“We were so much better tonight than we were in our game in Calgary (a 6-2 loss on Dec. 10) where they hit the fourth man all night long on us, and I pulled Michael (Hutchinson) after four (goals) but through 30 minutes he had been very good. We were far better position tonight.”

Noteworthy

The Jets wore their Heritage Classic jerseys for Monday’s game while the Flames donned their home uniforms. Winnipeg will wear the Heritage gear one more time this season, on March 19 against the Minnesota Wild… Winnipeg was scoreless on three power plays while the Flames went 0-for-3.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14