Comrie tames Hurricanes

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This article was published 04/02/2025 (219 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Take a bow, Matt Prefontaine.

The Winnipeg Jets video coach was a perfect two-for-two on Tuesday, utilizing two successful coach’s challenges — one that took a goal off the board and a second that overturned a disallowed goal in what became a 3-0 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes.

That gives the Jets seven victories in a row, including consecutive wins over Eastern Conference powerhouses as they improved to 38-14-3 for the season.

“Matty is the best in the business, he’s the Connor McDavid of video coaches,” said Jets goalie Eric Comrie, who made 29 saves to record his first shutout of the season. “We’re lucky to have him.”

For the season, the Jets are six-for-seven on coach’s challenges and there’s little doubt the ability to be correct on both of them on Tuesday had a massive impact on the outcome of the game.

“It’s not easy making those calls because there’s a lot of pressure on them,” said Jets forward Nino Niederreiter. “I’m glad it worked out.”

The Jets face the New York Islanders on Friday in the final game before the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Let’s take a closer look at how things unfolded:

CLEAN SHEET

After struggling to provide much run support for Comrie during the goalies’s eight-game winless skid (0-7-1), the tables have turned significantly, with Winnipeg putting up eight goals during his past two starts.

On this night, Comrie didn’t need much offence in front of him as he recorded the first shutout of the season and the third of his career.

It’s the first shutout for Comrie since March 25 of 2023, when he blanked the New York Islanders as a member of the Buffalo Sabres.

“It feels great. It’s always fun to get a shutout,” said Comrie, whose first NHL shutout came against the Philadelphia Flyers as a member of the Jets on April 27 of 2022. “The team was awesome in front of me. This is a fun group of guys to play with.”

POWERFUL STUFF

In the battle between the top-ranked power play and the No. 1 penalty kill in the NHL, the Jets were able to score a pair of goals on the man-advantage.

The first one featured a slippery move just inside the offensive blue-line by Alex Iafallo to walk around Brent Burns before making a perfect pass to Niederreiter, who ripped home a one-timer.

“That was spectacular,” said Niederreiter. “I saw him dance around and then I was like ‘OK, he’s going to dance one more’ and he sure did. Then he passed it over and I’m glad it found the net.”

For Niederreiter, it was his 14th goal of the campaign — which leaves him on pace to reach 20 goals for the eighth time in his career.

Then early in the second period, Neal Pionk stepped into a slapper after Cole Perfetti had his shot blocked by Dmitry Orlov.

For Pionk, it was his eighth goal of the campaign, which leaves him on the doorstep of becoming the eighth member of the Jets to hit double digits this season.

As for Perfetti, he’s up to eight points in his past six games and has recorded 33 in 55 games this season.

The Hurricanes had not surrendered a power-play marker in seven consecutive games, so scoring twice against them in an outing is a big accomplishment.

All season long, the Jets are getting contributions from both of their power-play units and that was evident once again as the second unit delivered two more goals.

THE CHALLENGES

With the game scorelss and the Hurricanes on the power play, it looked like the Jets were going to kill the penalty when Jackson Blake fired a seeing-eye shot through traffic and past Comrie.

Just after the red light went on, with 4:23 to go in the first period, Comrie reacted emphatically, suggesting goalie interference may have occurred.

After careful consideration, Jets head coach Scott Arniel waved a referee over to the bench and opted to use a coach’s challenge on the play.

Pionk and Hurricanes winger Mikko Rantanen were battling in front of the net and while Rantanen was inside the blue paint of the crease, Rantanen made contact with the goal stick of Comrie — which prevented him from being able to stay set.

Then with 3:41 to go in the third period, the Jets thought they had extended their lead to 3-0 when Rasmus Kupari took a pass from Mason Appleton and jammed in a loose puck on the doorstep.

As the Jets were celebrating, one of the referees immediately waved the goal off, saying Kupari had pushed the left pad of Pyotr Kochetkov into the net along with the puck.

After careful consideration, the Jets used another coach’s challenge and after video review, the call on the ice was overturned and Kupari was credited with his fifth goal of the season.

The replay showed the puck was never fully covered by Kochetkov and Kupari pushed the puck into the net, he didn’t actually push the goalie’s pad.

“Anytime those challenges go your way, they boost you. If they get off and get a 1-0 lead, they’re on the road and they can shut down with the best of them. But I like the way we responded. ,” said Arniel. “Yeah, that (first) one we were pretty sure on. Because we didn’t push Rantanen in. He kind of went through the blue paint and got (Comrie’s) stick.

“The second one, that’s a little trickier. Just because of where the score was. I’m not sure if it’s a 1-0 game if we’re going to make that call, just because it was overturned on the ice and those are tough ones, when the referee overturns them like that. But we looked at enough video and saw enough that Matty (Prefontaine) decided that it would be the right call.”

The Jets had another goal taken off the board on a review that was initiated by the NHL situation room and it was deemed that Vladislav Namestnikov used a distinct kicking motion to score a goal with six minutes to go in the third period.

THE KEY PLAY

A pair of successful coach’s challenges proved to be pivotal as the Jets won a seventh consecutive game.

THE THREE STARS

1) Eric Comrie, Jets, 29 saves to record first shutout of the season.

2) Nino Niederreiter, Jets, Scored a goal, added an assist.

3) Neal Pionk, Jets, Scored one goal, had six hits, two blocked shots.

EXTRA, EXTRA

After the morning skate, Arniel provided a quick update on the status of captain Adam Lowry and forward Morgan Barron, noting neither player has been on the ice yet and is not expected to until close to the end of the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Lowry has missed the past seven games with an upper-body issue he sustained against Utah Hockey Club and Barron sat out the past three games after he sustained an upper-body against the Montreal Canadiens when he delivered a heavy check on Kirby Dach.

“You don’t ever want to see it happen, but this break will certainly help them, help us a little bit, not having them miss so many games,” said Arniel. “Yeah, (the) timing is right.”

Both players officially remain week-to-week.

“We’ll look at it,” said Arniel. “(Barron) is a little farther behind. We’ll see where (Lowry) is. They haven’t started to skate, so I don’t have an idea on that (timetable), yet. Comfort, conditioning and then go from there.”

The healthy scratches for the Jets were defencemen Haydn Fleury and Ville Heinola and forward Brad Lambert.

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

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