Brossoit brilliant

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This article was published 04/12/2023 (672 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Take a bow, Laurent Brossoit.

Winnipeg’s backup netminder put on a brilliant performance Monday night, stopping 42 of 43 shots he faced as the Jets hung on for a 2-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes at Canada Life Centre.

The home team was under siege early and often, but Brossoit was calm, cool and collected in the crease. In fact, the only puck to elude him came off the stick of a teammate.

“You’re not going to beat that team without great goaltending,” said Jets coach Rick Bowness. “Listen, tonight was the reason we signed him. He was the difference, there’s no question. That was his best game, by far.”

It hasn’t been a banner beginning to the season for Brossoit, a Stanley Cup champion last year with the Vegas Golden Knights looking to prove he has the talent to be a true No. 1 netminder in the NHL. But this latest effort, in just his sixth start behind Connor Hellebuyck, was sensational.

It should give everyone a lot more confidence about the tandem going forward. Brossoit is now 3-2-1 on the year with a 2.65 goals-against-average and .902 save-percentage.

“Today I felt more like myself, more like I did last year,” said Brossoit. “I’m looking to harness that and continue on that path.”

At the other end of the rink, Winnipeg’s top line of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Nikolaj Ehlers also came through with both goals and six combined points. The Jets improve to 14-8-2 on the year, one point out of second in the Central Division and two points out of first. Carolina falls to 14-9-1.

“It’s a huge win,” said Ehlers. “After our three-game losing streak there to get back and get two wins in a row, we needed that. We needed to get back on track and play better. We’ve done that. Do I think we played the perfect game? Absolutely not, but our goalie stood on his head and even when you don’t play your best, you have to find ways to win, and we were able to do that against a pretty, pretty good team.”

Let’s break this one down further:

1) About that start — Other than Brossoit, the Jets apparently didn’t get the memo that this nationally-televised Sportsnet game was a 6:30 p.m. start, not the traditional 7 p.m. Because most of the first period was as one-sided as it gets.

Consider this: Shots through the first five minutes were a whopping 9-0 in favour of the visitors, who probably deserved to be up a goal or two at that point. That grew to 12-0 just past the midway mark.

“To be honest, I kind of like getting a lot of shots early and often,” said Brossoit. “It gets me into the game. But we knew they were going to do that. It’s kind of their M.O.”

The fans were growing restless, so it was surprise, then, that a Bronx cheer broke out when Ehlers appeared to register the first shot in goal with about seven minutes left in the period, followed by loud booing when it was wiped off the scoreboard seconds later.

“We told them that’s going to happen and there’s four lines over there and six D and they’re all big and they can all skate. And they just throw it north and they’re coming at you,” said Bowness.

“They make it very difficult to get your game going. But we had some looks in the first period and we missed the net. Sometimes you’ve got to bend a little bit but we didn’t break, and that’s the most important thing.”

Fortunately for Winnipeg, it’s about quality, not quantity. After a relatively harmless first shot actually happened 16:31 into the game, it was followed almost immediately by a much more dangerous second puck, fired off the stick of Connor and into the back of the net for his team-leading 15th of the season.

Ehlers made a beautiful sauce pass to set it up, while Scheifele drew the other helper.

Shots in the first 20 minutes were 15-3 for Carolina, shot attempts were 28-14, high-danger chances according to Natural Stat Trick were 7-2 for the Hurricanes — and yet the Jets were ahead in the stat that really matters.

2) About that second period — The roles were nearly reversed to start the middle frame, with the home team now coming out firing on all cylinders.

Winnipeg outshot Carolina 8-1 through the first three-and-a-half minutes of the second period.

Once again it was the top line coming through, as Ehlers finished off a spectacular three-way passing play with Scheifele and Connor for his seventh of the season at 11:39.

“Since we put them back together, they’ve been our best line. They’ve been creating offence every game,” said Bowness.

Although Carolina started coming on strong after falling behind by a pair, Brossoit and company continued to stand tall. But then came a bit of a blunder as Martin Necas attempted a wraparound with 51 seconds remaining in the second, only for Jets defenceman Dylan DeMelo to accidentally knock the puck into his own net.

3) A frantic finish — Carolina kept coming in the final frame, outshooting Winnipeg 14-6, and it seemed like it might just be a matter of time before they tied it up.

Flash back to the last time the Hurricanes were in town last season, where a 3-0 Winnipeg lead vanished in the blink of an eye as the visitors scored three times with the goalie pulled to send it to overtime. (The Jets ultimately prevailed thanks to Josh Morrissey’s winner).

Would history, sort of, repeat itself? You wondered, especially after Connor and Ehlers were both stopped on breakaways, and then Connor just missed the wide-open cage after Antti Raanta was removed for an extra attacker.

But Brossoit ensured it wouldn’t, saving one of his best for last as he stoned Hurricanes forward (and Winnipeg product) Seth Jarvis with 67 seconds left in the third period to preserve the victory.

“There was no panic in our game. No panic on our bench,” said Bowness. “Sometimes you just give the opposition credit. They played a great game. We hung in there, we won the game. That’s all that matters.”

4) Lineup changes — Winnipeg dressed seven defencemen for the second time this year, with Logan Stanley coming into the lineup and taking the spot of forward Axel Jonsson-Fjallby. That left veteran Nate Schmidt as the other healthy scratch, the fourth time that’s happened so far for the team’s second highest-paid blue-liner, who has just one assist through 20 games.

Vladislav Namestnikov missed a second straight game with a lower-body injury.

5) Extra, Extra — The Jets are now 7-0-2 this year against Eastern Conference opponents.

Winnipeg wore their “Fly the ‘48” jerseys for the first time this year as part of Military Appreciation Night. The RCAF-inspired sweaters are off to a strong start, with two more games in them to come this year.

After two straight larger-than-average crowds during the homestand to see Connor McDavid (last Thursday) and Connor Bedard (last Saturday), the Jets had a below-average attendance of 11,468 for this one.

Winnipeg went 0-for-1 on the power play, while Carolina went 0-for-3.

Up next: The Jets kick off a four-game Western Conference road trip on Thursday night in Denver when they face the Colorado Avalanche.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

X: @mikemcintyrewpg