Jets hang on for wild win over Panthers

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This article was published 14/10/2023 (723 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was a wild Winnipeg Jets home-opener that had a little bit of everything — including No. 1 centre Mark Scheifele recording a Gordie Howe hat trick and Adam Lowry setting up Mason Appleton’s game-winning, short-handed goal using teammate Josh Morrissey’s stick.

“Not on my Bingo card,” admitted Lowry.

No, it might not have been how they drew it up. But a 6-4 victory over the Florida Panthers on Saturday afternoon at Canada Life Centre was the end result they were hoping for after a tough-luck 5-3 loss on Wednesday in Calgary against the Flames.

Kyle Connor scored twice, while Scheifele, Appleton, Morgan Barron and Dylan DeMelo had singles. Connor Hellebuyck stopped 29 of 33 shots as Winnipeg improves to 1-1-0.

“It was a total team effort. Every line scored, specialty teams were good. That’s how you win hockey games,” said Jets coach Rick Bowness.

Evan Rodrigues netted a pair for the visitors, while Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe had singles. Sergei Bobrovsky turned aside 29 of 34 pucks that came his way as Florida falls to 0-2-0.

There’s plenty to dissect from this one. Let’s break it down:

1. Scheifele looks like a man on a mission: Fresh off signing his seven-year, US$59.5-million contract extension last week, it’s clear Scheifele isn’t intending to ease his way into the new campaign.

He opened the scoring just 3:30 into the first period, a power-play goal that got the home crowd roaring. It was his second tally in as many games, and you wonder if he might just challenge or perhaps exceed the career-high of 42 he scored last year.

Gabe Vilardi, the key return in the Pierre-Luc Dubois trade, drew an assist to record his first point with the Jets.

After Reinhart tied it up late in the frame on a Florida man advantage, and Rodrigues gave the Panthers a 2-1 lead just 25 seconds into the middle frame, Scheifele set up Connor 10 seconds later to even it up.

It was exactly the kind of response you hope your top line would have.

“Our mentality is they score, we’re going right back at them,” said Bowness.

“Good for Mark’s line to go out there. That was a real greasy goal. Went and got the puck deep, they won a little battle and made a great play to get the puck to KC. That’s what you need your top line to do, get the momentum back on your side.”

Not content with just using his hands to score and set up goals, Scheifele dropped the gloves with old nemesis Matthew Tkachuk early in the third. Scheifele didn’t like a late, reverse hit delivered by the pesky Florida star and responded with a slash that led to the gloves coming off.

“Puck’s six feet away and he moves 10 feet to hit me, so I didn’t like that,” said Scheifele, who actually got the extra two minutes.

“I don’t know how I get the extra there but so be it. He’s a tough customer. He’s their best player. That battle is what we all get excited for. You’re playing against a fantastic player, a tough guy, a guy who does everything. Didn’t like the hit. That’s what hockey is.”

There’s also some history there, as it was Tkachuk who ended Scheifele’s 2019-20 playoffs in the first game of their qualifying round series that happened in the Edmonton bubble. You may recall then Jets coach Paul Maurice called it a “filthy, dirty kick to the back of the leg.”

Maurice, of course, had a close-up view of the latest Scheifele/Tkachuk encounter, as he stood behind the Florida bench on Saturday.

Fun fact: This was actually Scheifele’s second Gordie Howe hatty of his career, which actually ties Howe in that department. (The previous one came against Dennis Wideman and the Montreal Canadiens).

“Good for Mark. That’s twice this year already where he’s gotta stick up for himself and he will,” said Bowness.

Scheifele fought Ottawa’s Parker Kelly in the pre-season after taking exception to an attempted headshot.

Scheifele also went 19-for-24 in faceoffs, one of the best games of his career.

2. The Jets are getting the depth scoring they need:

Sure, first-liners Scheifele and Connor have now scored in both games. But Alex Iafallo (the second piece of the Dubois trade) lit the lamp in Calgary, and Saturday’s tallies from DeMelo, Barron and Appleton show there’s no shortage of offensive weaponry in the lineup.

They were timely goals, too.

Barron put Winnipeg up 3-2 at 8:20 of the second period, finishing off a nice play with fourth-line teammates Appleton and Rasmus Kupari (the third piece of the Dubois trade).

Then the second line came through, as Cole Perfetti and Nino Niederreiter found DeMelo at the point, and the blue-liner fired an Alex Ovechkin-like wrister that beat Bobrovsky at 9:55.

“It’s huge. It’s something we talked about all through training camp, but even when the trade happened, our team’s depth has improved,” said Lowry.

“We’re going to get contributions from all four lines. I don’t think we‘ve talked enough about the contributions we get from our back end too. We’ve got three solid pairs. That’s a huge goal. (DeMelo) is very underrated. He was in a great spot and lets it rip. We just love seeing him score.”

The Jets have now scored nine goals in two games.

“All four lines without the puck have done a really good job pressuring the opposition,” said Bowness.

“We’ve been very good at five-on-five defensively. It’s created more offence for us. The puck didn’t go in in Calgary, it went in today.”

3. Winnipeg still has trouble defending a 6-on-5:

The Jets made it 5-2 early in the third on a memorable goal that saw Lowry lose his stick — he gave it to teammate Brenden Dillon — only to grab Morrissey’s as he skated by the Winnipeg bench, attempting to kick a loose puck that was in his skates.

Lowry then carried on down the ice with his new, much shorter twig, ultimately feeding Appleton.

That would end up being the game-winner after Florida pulled Bobrovsky early for the extra attacker and turned a laugher into a squeaker when Verhaeghe (16:31) and Rodrigues (17:36) quickly cut the deficit to one.

“I thought we made two glaring mistakes on both of those goals that we can fix,” said Bowness.

It brought back memories of last year when the Carolina Hurricanes scored three times with their goalie out to tie it up late in regulation — especially when Tkachuk somehow got in behind Winnipeg’s defence for a clear-cut breakaway with just under two minutes left, only to hit the post.

“We got a little lucky there,” said Bowness.

Connor ensured there would be no Florida comeback when he scored into an empty net with 70 seconds left.

4. Where was everyone? A crowd of just 13,410 took in the matinee at the downtown rink, meaning nearly 2,000 seats went unsold. That’s a development worth keeping an eye on, considering the Jets averaged 14,045 last year — their lowest in the dozen years since the NHL returned.

You’d think a home-opener, on a weekend afternoon, against their beloved former coach and the club he took all the way to the Stanley Cup final last spring would have attracted a sellout, or at least something very close to one.

You would be wrong.

5. Extra, extra: For the second straight game, forward David Gustafsson and defencemen Logan Stanley and Declan Chisholm were the healthy scratches.

Winnipeg went 2-for-6 on the power play, while Florida went 1-for-7.

The Jets will take Sunday off, then return to the ice Monday for practice to prepare for their next game — a Tuesday night visit from Dubois and the Kings.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

X: @mikemcintyrewpg