Connor ends scoring slump with OT goal

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This article was published 03/11/2022 (1038 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Praise be to the hockey gods: Kyle Connor has broken the curse.

The high-flying Winnipeg Jets winger, mired in a miserable drought to start the year, was the overtime hero on Thursday at Canada Life Centre, firing a wrister 1:45 into the three-on-three skills session to give his team a 3-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens.

Connor, who scored a career-high 47 goals last season, had been stuck on one lonely tally — an empty-netter that occurred nine games ago during the season-opener. He picked a fine time to finally get one past a goaltender.

“I think I tried him high-glove like seven times today, so changed it up there,” Connor said of the low laser that lit the lamp.

Winnipeg improves to 6-3-1, including 4-0-1 in the past five games (the last three of which have all gone beyond regulation). Montreal falls to 5-5-1.

Pierre-Luc Dubois (4th) and Blake Wheeler (3rd) had the other Jets goals, while Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach scored for the Habs, which gave them leads, at the time, of 1-0 and 2-1. Connor Hellebuyck stopped 20 of 22 shots, while Sam Montembeault was sensational by turning aside 33 of 36 pucks that came his way.

Winnipeg went 1-for-5 on the power play, while Montreal was 0-for-2.

Here’s a full breakdown of this Canadian clash, including analysis and quotes, news and notes:

1) Connor had at least a half-dozen glorious chances earlier in the game, including yet another post. It was starting to look like he might never score again, and you can tell the drought was wearing on him. With Nikolaj Ehlers missing an eighth straight game due to a lower-body injury and still no timeline for a return, the pressure on Connor to perform gets even greater. And yet, he couldn’t buy one.

“Honestly, a lot of credit to our team this year. Everybody across the room. We’ve got such a good group, and build each other up in situations where guys are dealing with that,” Connor said of how he avoided hanging his head.

“For me, I just lean on them a lot. It starts with our leaders, Blake (Wheeler) I think was the first guy off the bench hugging me. He couldn’t be more excited. That’s just the type of character we have in this room. It’s good to be able to lean on those guys in situations like that.”

The winner was perfectly executed, with Connor, Mark Scheifele and Josh Morrissey creating all sorts of chaos on the ice and opening up some time and space for him to score. Memo to the rest of the NHL: look out. This might be the start of the dam bursting for Connor.

“We needed that guy to score. He has had incredible opportunities every game, he’s just so dynamic and creates so much out there for us,” said Wheeler. “For guys like him when it rains it pours. Hopefully, it’s the start of something big for him.”

2) No doubt Rick Bowness didn’t think he’d have to wait until Nov. 3 to get his first victory behind the bench, but such was the case, with COVID-19 sidelining him for eight of the first nine games, and his lone previous appearance being a 4-1 loss to Toronto on Oct. 22.

Of course, Bowness has had his fingerprints all over the club in every game, albeit it from a distance at times. And he showed he’s not afraid to mix things up even in a tight contest. With the game tied 2-2 to start the third, he got out the line blender — moving Mason Appleton from the third line to the top line, Sam Gagner from the top line to the fourth line, and Axel Jonsson-Fjallby from the fourth line to the third line.

The result was Winnipeg’s strongest period of the three, one where they would have skated away with a regulation victory if not for Montembeault doing his best Carey Price in his prime imitation.

Bowness delivered a loud and clear message at the start of this week, saying he wasn’t happy with much of what he’d seen from his team so far — especially on the just-completed road trip through Los Angeles, Arizona and Las Vegas where they got five of six points but were dominated for large stretches of play.

“That’s more like our team. That’s how we want to play,” said Bowness. “We don’t want to be giving up 40 shots a night and tonight was a better example of how we want to play.”

The Jets were also noticeably physical, outhitting Montreal 35-23. However, the biggest check of the night came on the opening shift, when Gagner accidentally sent referee Chris Schlenker flying after a malfunction at the junction.

3) There’s been plenty of speculation Dubois wants to bolt for his hometown Habs as soon as he’s able to in the summer of 2024. If so, he sure has a funny way of making friends with his future team.

Dubois was a beast all night, not only with his power-play goal in the opening period and an assist on Wheeler’s second-period tally (which Montreal unsuccessfully challenged for goaltender interference), but also being a major pain for his opponents. He got under the skin of seemingly everyone, including the entire Montreal bench after they thought he got away with bumping Montembeault with no call at one point.

He also took exception to Sean Monahan taking a run at him by returning the favour seconds later. He also drew a pair of minor penalties by being his usual difficult self. For good measure, he also showed some heads-up defensive awareness when he and Wheeler had to become defence partners with both Dylan Samberg and Dylan DeMelo up on the rush. The two forwards did a nice job thwarting a Montreal counter-attack.

“I loved his game. He should have got more minutes. I should have given him more minutes,” said Bowness. “The power plays, then the penalty kill, he played an outstanding game. He’s a force out there when he’s going like that. I love the way he takes the puck into the zone, and hangs onto it, and buys time. He’s big and strong enough to protect the puck. He had an outstanding game.”

4) It’s always a lively atmosphere when a Canadian Original Six team comes to town, but it seems the Habs (at least on a Thursday) aren’t quite the draw of the Maple Leafs (at least on a Saturday). There were plenty of empty seats for this one, with an announced crowd of 13,729 — or about 1,600 short of capacity. Winnipeg has sold out the building just once since the pandemic began — that Oct. 22 affair when Toronto paid a visit for a Hockey Night In Canada game.

5) Some bad news on the injury front Thursday, with forward Morgan Barron expected to miss between four and five weeks with a wrist injury that requires surgery. The 23-year-old had four points (one goal, three assists) in nine games this year, primarily on the third line, and brought a physical presence that will be missed.

Dominic Toninato took his spot in the lineup and made his regular-season debut against Montreal. Jansen Harkins was the lone healthy forward scratch, while defenceman Kyle Capobianco sat for a 10th straight game. Ehlers and Logan Stanley are both currently on injured reserve.

Up next: The three-game homestand continues on Saturday afternoon against the Chicago Blackhawks.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg