Kyle Connor’s hat trick takes down Ducks

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This article was published 17/11/2022 (1073 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kyle Connor made sure a special night for the Winnipeg Jets organization would have a memorable ending.

Connor recorded his third-career hat trick — the final goal coming with 54 seconds left in the third period of a tie game — to give his club a thrilling 3-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday.

His timing was impeccable. Connor set the Jets 2.0 record with 47 goals last year, but was stuck on just two through 14 games. All it took was having the greatest individual scorer of the 1.0 era, Teemu Selanne, in the house, apparently. The Finnish Flash, whose 76 goals in his rookie season of 1992-93 made him a hockey hero around here, was inducted into the organization’s Hall of Fame, along with Teppo Numminen, earlier in the night.

“Me and (Blake Wheeler) were talking about if whoever scores first is gonna throw the glove up and do his celly, but I didn’t do it,” Connor said with a laugh following the game.

Winnipeg improves to 10-4-1 on the season, including a sizzling 8-1-1 in the past 10. Anaheim falls to 5-11-1.

Troy Terry opened the scoring in the first period for the visitors before Connor replied midway through the game on the power play. Connor then gave Winnipeg its first lead with just under six minutes left in the third, but Trevor Zegras tied it just 28 seconds later. With overtime looking inevitable, Connor made sure 14,278 fans, along with plenty of alumni, would go home happy.

“It’s cool to have them in the building. I know there was an extra buzz coming into it,” said Connor. “We had the gala (Tuesday) night and a bunch of cool stories about those two and it felt good to get a win for those guys, definitely.”

“I think that first one gave him a big boost and you could see all of a sudden the stride picked up, the enthusiasm picked up a lot,” said Jets coach Rick Bowness. “A little bit of a weight off his shoulders.”

Here’s some other thoughts and observations.

1) It’s fair to wonder if Winnipeg’s top line is cursed. After all, Nikolaj Ehlers started on the wing beside Connor and Mark Scheifele, then went down with an injury after two games. Mason Appleton took his spot and is now out long-term.

Up next to try and fill it is veteran Sam Gagner, who may not have the wheels of his predecessors at the age of 33 but certainly has the smarts. A textbook example occurred on Connor’s second goal, where Gagner made a feed to set up Connor after some great cycle work down low. Scheifele got his second helper of the night on the game-winner, putting the puck right on his teammate’s tape.

“My game wasn’t too far off. I put a little more emphasis of getting to the net tonight, just being around more pucks there. A couple of good plays by Scheif and Gags, too,” said Connor.

That’s two huge tallies, from the new, new top line, just in the nick of time.

“He’s made so many good plays. I’ve been lucky to be on the receiving end on a bunch of his really nice passes. It was nice to pay him back tonight,” Scheifele said of Connor. “Obviously, nice to see him pop three tonight.”

2) The next low-event game Pierre-Luc Dubois has will be his first.

He’s always involved in some fashion or another. Consider what happened in the second period alone: After mixing it up with Sam Carrick and getting slashed (which drew a penalty), Brenden Dillon stepped in to drop the gloves with the Anaheim skater, earning himself an instigator penalty and 10-minute misconduct. Dubois then drew a hooking penalty on Dmitry Kulikov, and assisted on Connor’s first goal. He was also in the kitchen of Gibson, which prompted the Ducks to consider a potential goalie interference penalty. A few minutes later, John Klingberg hit him in the face with a high stick and went to the sin bin.

3) Is there a doctor in the house?

We’re barely a month into the new season, and the Jets were without five injured players Thursday who were in their opening-night lineup. Forwards Ehlers, Appleton and Morgan Barron, and defencemen Dylan DeMelo and Logan Stanley are all nursing various hurts.

DeMelo was a surprise addition to the list, as he was a participant at Wednesday’s practice. Kyle Capobianco took his spot in the lineup. Up front, Dominic Toninato took the place of Appleton, who suffered a wrist injury on Sunday in Seattle and underwent surgery earlier this week. He’s expected to be out as long as three months. Barron also had wrist surgery a few weeks ago and isn’t coming back anytime soon.

The news on Ehlers Thursday was rather ominous. The flashy winger, who got hurt in the second game of the year in Dallas, skated by himself on Wednesday for the first time in a month, but was nowhere to be seen on Thursday.

“We’re going to have to make a call here eventually, very soon here, what we’re going to do with him,” Bowness said following the morning skate. When asked if that could include going under the knife, Bowness added more intrigue with his cryptic answer.

“Nothing’s off the table with Nikolaj right now, let’s put it that way,” he said.

4) Speaking of Heinola, there was some excitement when he was called up from the Manitoba Moose on Thursday morning. But fans hoping to see him step right into the lineup were no doubt disappointed. Bowness, asked in the morning about the 21-year-old Finn, said his time will come.

“I’m hearing great reports on his last couple games. Listen, he’s a big part of the future of the franchise. You look at the way the league is played today, offensive defencemen, you need the mobility, you need the passing, you need the guy to join the rush. He fits that bill, so that’s why he was a first-round pick, and we still have great hopes for him,” Bowness said.

The head coach was spotted having a lengthy chat with Heinola prior to the morning skate.

“He was disappointed in the start of his season, but he’s very happy in his play right now,” said Bowness. ” We’ve got to get to the point where we’re getting a phone call from the staff down there saying this guy is too good for the league and you need to give him a look now. We haven’t got there yet, but we’re getting a lot closer. I just want him to know that when that time comes, we will give him a good opportunity.”

Up next: The three-game homestand continues with a visit from Sidney Crosby and company on Saturday night (6 p.m.), then wraps up Monday with Paul Stastny and the Carolina Hurricanes in town.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.m.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg