Pionk pounds OT winner against Avs

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This article was published 23/01/2025 (256 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DENVER — There was certainly nothing embarrassing about this one.

The Winnipeg Jets limped into Denver licking their wounds after an ugly Monday night loss in Utah that had their coach, Scott Arniel, seeing red.

After taking a day away from the rink on Tuesday — cancelling a practice and spending time, as forward Alex Iafallo put it, to “look yourself in the mirror” — the Jets had to love what was staring back at them Wednesday night.

A 3-2 overtime victory over the Colorado Avalanche in front of a sold-out crowd at Ball Arena was just what the doctor ordered.

Defenceman Neal Pionk was the three-on-three hero, unloading a rocket of a slapshot just 17 seconds into the session to give the visitors two much-needed points. His seventh of the season sent the Jets into hockey heaven.

“Must go a little faster from the altitude,” Pionk joked of the 94 MPH heater that eerily resembled the overtime winner he scored in the very same building back on Oct. 19, 2022.

“From an individual effort, just everybody picking up their game a little bit. And I thought overall, as a team, we were patient. We allowed the game to come to us and then took advantage of the opportunities when we could.”

Winnipeg improves to 32-14-3 on the year, including 3-1-0 against Colorado this season, and remains on top of both the Central Division and Western Conference standings. The Avalanche are now 28-19-2.

“We want to be pushed like an elite team, and we have been an elite team this year, so we have responded well when we haven’t had our best games this year so far,” defenceman Josh Morrissey said of getting called out publicly (and, no doubt, privately) by Arniel.

This was a wildly entertaining, back-and-forth affair between two teams that would appear to be legitimate contenders. It passed the test for Arniel, who was looking for a return to the standard the Jets have set for themselves and not the type of loose “pond hockey” they played in the 5-2 setback in Salt Lake City, the second straight loss for his squad.

“That’s sort of the growth of our team, part of our leadership group, knowing that we had to be a lot better than we were,” Arniel said of the response he saw against the Avalanche.

“Nobody was happy with how we played in Utah. Just to come out like we did and play as strong as we did, to keep a real good hockey team, keep their offensive chances down and just kind of stick with the game plan, it was a strong effort by everybody.”

Even more impressive was doing so without captain and shutdown centre Adam Lowry, who is week-to-week with an upper-body injury suffered Monday in Utah.

Let’s break this one down further:

Nate the great

The Jets had done a stellar job of slowing Nathan MacKinnon down in their three previous meetings this season, holding him to just one assist in those games. That’s not an easy feat, considering he leads the NHL in scoring with 18 goals and 74 points entering play.

Make that 19 goals and 75 points now. MacKinnon opened the scoring at 6:09 of the second period, taking advantage of Winnipeg’s inability to get the puck deep after being trapped in their own zone for a prolonged stretch.

With the Jets finally getting past their own blue-line, forward Cole Perfetti could only get the puck just inside the Avalanche zone. Not every exhausted Winnipeg player could get in a much-needed line change, including Dylan Samberg who was no match for a streaking MacKinnon on the rush back up the ice.

MacKinnon hit the post with his first shot, then got his own rebound and buried it past Connor Hellebuyck.

Incredibly, that was the first regular-season goal Colorado has scored on Hellebuyck in a span of 215 minutes and 28 seconds — so nearly 11 full periods of hockey. The reigning Vezina Trophy winner had recorded three straight shutouts against Colorado — in both games he’s played against them this year, and in their final regular-season meeting last year.

Going to the net

It’s easier said than done, to be clear. But “get to the net” has been a mantra for the Jets, especially as of late when the offence has started to dry up.

Both of Winnipeg’s second period tallies were prime examples of that.

“It’s a hard league and if you want to stay on the outside, you’re not going to get much,” said Arniel.

“You have to get inside to find those greasy goals and we hadn’t scored many as of late. Just for us to go in there and you may take an extra shot and maybe get banged on a little bit but at the end of the day, when you score goals like that, the reward’s nice.”

The first, off the stick of Morgan Barron, came right on Mackenzie Blackwood’s doorstep as he re-directed a terrific David Gustafsson pass at 10:56 of the second period. Morrissey’s speedy puck carry through the neutral zone got things going in the right direction.

The second, off the body of Gabe Vilardi, came just to Blackwood’s right as Morrissey’s shot attempt deflected off him and into the Avalanche net. It’s the 20th goal of the year for Vilardi, making him the third Jets skater (along with Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor) to reach that milestone so far this season. It came with just 76 seconds left in the middle frame.

“It is not an overly high percentage play but with Gabe there, maybe it is because he is so good at tipping pucks,” said Morrissey.

“I was getting ripped by a couple of guys, specifically Nate (MacKinnon, who was tied up with Vilardi in front of the net) on that one, just you missed the net by four feet and I said, ‘Hey, it is what it is.’”

That was Vilardi’s 42nd point of the year, which is a new career-high for him. He previously had 41 in the 2022-23 season with Los Angeles, doing so in 63 games. Vilardi has now surpassed that in just 49 contests.

Give credit for the Jets for not sagging after giving up the opening goal — something they’ve now done in four straight games.

Hail Cale

Not only do they have the top-scoring forward in the league in MacKinnon, but the Avalanche also have the top-scoring defenceman in the league in Cale Makar.

Talk about a luxury of riches.

Makar showed why he’s so dangerous with a dazzling rush, set up by a great Mikko Rantanen pass, which tied the game 2-2 at 7:05 of the third period.

Sometimes, you just have to tip your hockey helmet.

“He is an unbelievable player,” said Morrissey, who will be teammates with Makar and MacKinnon on Team Canada at the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off.

“He broke it out from one knee. They came up the ice with a lot of speed and they do a great job of finding the late man in the rush. He got to the outside and scored a nice goal. I skate a lot with him in the summer and that kind of play happened a lot on two-on-two and three-on-three and he translates that night in and night out in the NHL.”

Makar entered the game ice cold, at least by his standards, with no points in six of his previous eight games. You knew it was only a matter of time before that changed.

Praise from their rival

Jared Bednar has been behind the bench here in the Mile High City for nearly a decade and led the Avalanche to a Stanley Cup in 2022. He knows a good team when he sees one — and it’s clear he views the Jets in a very favourable light.

“They’re No. 1 in the league in suppressing scoring chances off the rush, off the D zone. They’re not giving you any space,” he said prior to puck drop.

“You’re going to have to go earn everything you get and then some. Because when you do earn some, then you’ve got to beat Hellebuyck. So they take a tremendous amount of pride in it, it’s where their game has improved, too, and why they’re a top team in the league at this point this year.”

Bednar also had a good take on Arniel’s fiery post-game rant.

“From an outsider looking in and looking at the way they play, you’re going to have games where you’re bad. It’s an 82-game season. It’s a marathon. We’ve played multiple games in the last two weeks that were bad and we’re still pushing,” Bednar began.

“As coaches you hang on to the losses and the losses bug you. You expect to win every night and you expect your team to play well every night, and when they don’t you get mad and players get mad.”

The key, he explained, is to channel that anger in a positive fashion, which he was expecting to see from Winnipeg.

“Will they play hard? Yes, I expect them to bounce back to their best game again. It’s up to us to go beat them.”

Spoiler alert: They did not.

Key play

Pionk’s overtime rocket was the difference.

Three stars

1. Jets D Josh Morrissey: 2A

2. Avs D Cale Makar: 1G.

3. Jets D Neal Pionk: Game-winning goal.

Extra, extra

Winnipeg killed off both minor penalties they took, including an iffy call late in the third period that no doubt had the culprit, Nikolaj Ehlers, sweating bullets in the sin bin. Ehlers appeared to throw a nice hip check on MacKinnon, who was knocked to the ice, but the referees ruled it was tripping.

“A lost art,” Arniel said of the hip check.

The Jets went 0-for-1 on the power play. Incredibly, they didn’t get any power plays in their previous two meetings this year against Colorado, who clearly are on their best behaviour when they face Winnipeg.

Hellebuyck finished with 25 saves, along with a secondary assist on Pionk’s game-winner. Blackwood, who has helped turn Colorado’s season around since coming over in a trade from San Jose, stopped 22 pucks.

Winnipeg’s healthy scratches were defencemen Colin Miller and Ville Heinola and forward Dominic Toninato.

The Jets stay overnight in Denver and are set to fly home Thursday afternoon. They’ll open a two-game homestand starting Friday night against Utah.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

X and Bluesky: @mikemcintyrewpg