Jets steal win in Music City

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This article was published 09/04/2024 (546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NASHVILLE – The race for second place just got a lot more interesting.

With a 4-3 overtime victory over the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night at Bridgestone Arena, the Winnipeg Jets continue to go toe-to-toe with the Colorado Avalanche in the chase for second place in the Central Division.

Kyle Connor delivered the game-winner at 1:52 of the three-on-three session, converting a feed from Mark Scheifele to secure the extra point and give the Jets a fourth straight victory.

“Obviously, KC is a good shooter. You want to get the puck on his stick,” said Scheifele. “I just tried to attend the pass right. Obviously a great shot by him.”

Although the Jets still trail the Avalanche by two points, the Jets have a game in hand and hold the first tiebreaker, which is regulation wins (42-41).

It’s a big deal, considering whoever ends up on top will have home-ice advantage in the first round.

With the win, the Jets improved to 48-24-6. Colorado beat the Minnesota Wild 5-2 in a late game and is now 49-24-6.

With just a few games left in the regular season, this race will likely go down to the wire – though Saturday’s finale of the Jets current four-game road trip in Denver is looming large.

“It’s huge. We’re going to fight for home ice and the division until we can’t no more,” said Jets defenceman Dylan DeMelo. “This is a big win for us. A huge game obviously against Dallas and, I’m not looking too far ahead, but obviously a big one against Colorado. We want home ice, there’s no doubt about it. The ability to sleep in your own bed, less travel and be able to get matchups, that’s a big thing. That matters. It’s not everything, but if we can get it, we’ll try to get it.”

Before that matchup takes place, the Jets will face the first-place Dallas Stars on Thursday night, who currently have a five-point cushion.

Let’s take a look at what went down in Music City:

1 One for the highlight reel – Much has been made about the contributions Jets right-winger Gabriel Vilardi has made to the power play when he’s been in the lineup, and he added another goal for the highlight reel to even the score in the first period. After some quick puck movement, Scheifele found Vilardi in his office in front and that’s when Vilardi went to work. Thanks to a quick pivot, Vilardi created a lane for himself to put his stick between the legs and roof his shot over the outstretched glove of Juuse Saros.

“A pretty nasty goal, for sure. That one’s going to be on the highlight reel. We’ll see that on a lot,” said DeMelo. “He’s got great hands in tight. You’ve seen it all year. And we’ve missed him there when he hasn’t been there. Such a key on the power play. Sucks a lot of guys in. And then if you give him room, he’ll do something like that. That was an amazing goal by a top player for our team.”

Vilardi is up to 20 goals, making it consecutive seasons of hitting that mark (he set a career high with 23 in 63 games last season. Injuries have limited Vilardi to 43 games so far, but he’s done an excellent job of being productive when healthy.

There’s been plenty of talk about the importance of getting the power play going and that doesn’t just mean scoring, it means finding a way to provide some momentum even if the Jets don’t find the back of the net with the man-advantage.

“He’s got great hands down behind the net. He makes that power play go,” said Jets head coach Rick Bowness. “He’s such a threat. They’ve got to respect that.”

2 Battle between the pipes – As he made his 58th start of the season, Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck turned in another excellent performance, finishing with 45 saves.

He was under siege in the second and third periods but stood tall and was the biggest reason the Jets got this game to extra time.

“We played really well in the first and really well after they tied it up (in the third),” said coach Rick Bowness. “In between wasn’t our best hockey, for sure. We’ve played better than that and lost, so we’ll take that. Our goalie was outstanding.

“Player of the game,” Bowness continued. “There was no win without him. It’s as simple as that.”

This was the type of outing the Jets are going to need from Hellebuyck if they want to go on a playoff run.

Hellebuyck was at his best, which is big and boring, with a heavy dose of making difficult saves look routine.

Hellebuyck had Luke Evangelista looking skyward on several occasions, including a clear-cut breakaway and a partial break late in the second period.

Evangelista finished with 10 shots on goal and 14 shot attempts.

“Fantastic. He’s got my Vezina vote,” said DeMelo. “We needed him for sure. We were hanging on there, there’s no doubt about it. Without him we don’t get that win.”

Saros, who leads the league with 62 starts, wasn’t to blame, but the Jets were certainly opportunistic in building a first period cushion, scoring three times on just five shots on goal. But the markers were a product of poor puck management or blown coverage.

Look for Laurent Brossoit to get the start on Thursday against the Stars. It will be his 21st start and 22nd appearance of the campaign.

3 The Norris candidates – Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey and Predators blue-liner Roman Josi figure to be on a number of Norris Trophy ballots in a couple of weeks and both guys were all over the ice – in a good way in this matchup.

Morrissey had an assist on Vilardi’s power-play marker and was excellent defensively.

Josi, who leads all defencemen in goals with 21, had two shots on goal, four shot attempts and two blocked shots in 25:42 of ice time. Josi had the primary assist on both of the Predators goals in the third period as they got the game to overtime and clinched their spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

4 Fourth line strikes again (sort of) – Morgan Barron did an excellent job of getting the puck into the offensive zone, retrieved it and then found DeMelo sneaking in from the right point. DeMelo worked his way into the high slot and ripped a shot past Saros to make it 3-1, just over four minutes after Scheifele had given the Jets the lead with his 24th of the year. DeMelo now has three goals this season.

The fourth line has been excellent of late, scoring three times in Saturday’s 4-2 win over the Minnesota Wild.

5 The issues with puck management – One of the priorities for the Jets going into the contest was to limit the turnovers and they didn’t exactly excel on that front during the first period. Jets winger Nikolaj Ehlers was caught trying to do too much in the neutral zone and this example of poor puck management proved costly, as it opened the door for Tommy Novak to cruise in and score on a nifty individual effort.

The Jets finished the game with 10 giveaways and that’s a number they will need to shave down in the coming days.

6 Extra, extra – With just under three minutes left in regulation time, Jets defenceman Brenden Dillon prevented Predators left-winger Cole Smith from scoring the go-ahead goal on a rebound. Dillon dove headfirst and got his stick on the puck before Smith could score on his backhand.

The blender was out in full force, as the Jets continue to work to find an optimal top-6 here as the regular season winds down. During the third period, Connor was back up on the top line with Scheifele and Vilardi. A number of different permutations and combinations were tried on the second, third and fourth lines.

“Yeah, I liked that,” said Bowness, asked about reuniting Connor with Scheifele. “Things weren’t going our way so we always have that in our back pocket that we’re going to make some adjustments for the first couple of lines. And we did.”

There was a heavyweight tilt in the third period, as Jets defenceman Logan Stanley dropped the gloves with Predators centre Michael McCarron. It was a spirited bout and McCarron knocked Stanley down with a right hand that connected. Stanley continues to leave an impression in the battle to be the sixth D-man come Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It will be interesting to see if the Jets coaching staff sticks with Stanley on Thursday or if they go back to Nate Schmidt.

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

X: @WiebesWorld