Dubois, Maenalanen each score twice in Jets dominant 7-2 win over Blackhawks

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This article was published 27/11/2022 (1017 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CHICAGO — Their record suggests the Winnipeg Jets are much better than many people thought they would be. And the way they keep racking up wins suggests they’re also a lot deeper than anyone believed.

A dominant 7-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night at United Centre is just the latest example.

Fourth-line winger Saku Maenalanen led the way with two goals, while third-liner Jansen Harkins also lit the lamp for a second straight game. Morgan Barron, fresh off a 10-game stint on the injured list, had a pair of helpers. Manitoba Moose callup Mikey Eyssimont chipped in with an assist while also getting some power play time, capping off an extremely productive week which included his first NHL goal, first NHL assist and first NHL fight. Dominic Toninato, a scratch for four straight, came in and got an assist. And waiver wire pickup Axel Jonsson-Fjallby was promoted to the top line.

Who had any of that on the bingo card?

Throw in some expected offence from the big stars — Pierre-Luc Dubois scored twice to hit double-digits, Mark Scheifele had his team-leading 11th, Kyle Connor scored for the sixth time in as many games and added two assists, and leading scorer Josh Morrissey chipped in with three helpers – and this was one of Winnipeg’s easiest nights at the office all year.

“Every line scored. That’s nice to see,” said Jets coach Rick Bowness. “We need some goals from that bottom six, and we’ve been getting them.”

The season-high seven goals came with forwards Nikolaj Ehlers and Mason Appleton still on injured reserve, David Gustafsson sidelined with a minor injury and veteran Sam Gagner a healthy scratch for the first time.

“If you want to be a successful team in this league, the only way to do it through the whole 82-game season is like that, when everybody contributes,” said Dubois. “Some nights, some lines might contribute more offensively or defensively. For it to be sustainable, that’s how it’s going to have to look this year. We did a good job tonight.”

Connor Hellebuyck stopped 23 of 25 shots to lead the way in net. Petr Mrazek was much busier at the other end of the nice, facing 44 Winnipeg shots and turning aside 37.

The Jets improve to 13-6-1, including 2-1-0 on the road trip which began with a 6-1 blowout loss in Minnesota on Wednesday, followed by a wild 5-4 overtime win in Dallas on Friday. They now have the top winning percentage in the Central Division, slightly ahead of Colorado and Dallas. Those 27 points in 20 games also match their best-ever start to the year (they also had 27 in 2021-22, and 2017-18).

Let’s break down all the action from the Windy City, shall we:

1) It’s been a couple years now since a certain Finnish winger was making opposing goaltenders look foolish with his wicked wrister. But Maenalanen certainly channeled his best Patrik Laine on his second goal of the night, an absolute rocket that Mrazek never saw.

“We’ve seen it a few times in practice,” Dubois said of the sizzling snipe. “He’s been playing really well for us. He’s been a surprise this year for a lot of people. We saw from training camp what he could do for this team and what he could bring to the table. Offensively, to start the year, maybe it wasn’t there. But everybody in this dressing room, the coaching staff, knew how valuable he was to us. It was good to see it pay off tonight.”

This is the second multi-goal game of Maenalanen’s career, the other happening during the 2018-19 season with Carolina.

2) Sitting Gagner would seem to be a curious development for a guy who had been skating on the top line as recently as Friday. He is just 14 games away from 1,000 for his career and was on track to hit that milestone Dec. 22 in Boston. Now, it’s been pushed back to Dec. 23 in Washington — provided, of course, he can immediately get back in the lineup.

“Listen, we lost Gus (Gustafsson), and we’ve been getting killed on faceoffs, so we wanted to get Toni (Toninato) a try, give him a game. He did a good job for us tonight. Plus Morgan (Barron) was coming back,” Bowness explained of the move.

“So we just wanted to give the power plays a different look because it hasn’t been good enough. And it was a much better look tonight. So that’s a very tough decision, because Sam has played very well for us. And that’s a tough decision to make. But you gotta, as a coach, you have to make the best decision what you think for the team is, and tonight, that was the best decision. As tough as it was, and it’s hard on Sam. He’s been very very good for us. But it’s more Morgan coming back and losing Gus.”

3) Blake Wheeler may be slowing down, but he hasn’t lost a thing when it comes to his passing ability. The 36-year-old has the kind of hands most hockey players can only dream of, and they were on full display as he set up Scheifele’s goal in the second period. It was a no-look beauty. Wheeler also helped set up Connor’s goal during a 5-on-3 power play which turned out to be the game winner.

“Those two guys (Wheeler and Scheifele) have played together a lot over the years. They read off each other well,” said Bowness. “Blake is a smart guy, an intelligent hockey player. With age, you don’t lose that. He knows how to use his strengths.”

The former Jets captain had two assists against Dallas, and he’s now up to 16 points (four goals, 12 assists) through 20 games this year.

4) It’s actually kind of sad to see what’s happened to the once mighty Blackhawks. But this club is fully on “Team Tank” after a surprisingly solid start to the year. The losses are mounting, and there were swaths of empty seats inside one of the great NHL buildings on Sunday night.

Chicago falls to 6-11-4, now having dropped seven straight games.

Hey, at least the anthems sung by the incomparable Jim Cornelison were as spine-tingling as ever. Poor Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, who can’t be having much fun these days.

5) If Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson had a sense of humour, he should have considered pulling the goalie once his club fell behind by a significant margin. Hey, it worked for Carolina and Dallas earlier in the weeks, when those two teams combined to score five 6-on-5 goals to force overtime (which they went on to lose).

Chicago actually looked to have opened the scoring in the first period, with Andreas Athanasiou burying a rebound, but a replay challenge confirmed what the eyes had seen — the home team was clearly offside on the zone entry a few seconds earlier.

Taylor Raddysh had the first goal that counted, at 3:12 of the second period to cut the Winnipeg lead to 2-1. And then Jujhar Khaira had the second, at 15:09 of the middle frame on the power play, to make it a 4-2 deficit at that time.

UP NEXT: The Jets begin a four-game homestand on Tuesday night when the Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche pay a visit to Canada Life Centre.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg