Wheeler leads the way

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This article was published 12/02/2022 (1314 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NASHVILLE — Winnipeg Jets interim coach Dave Lowry has been preaching the importance of his best players needing to be difference-makers in big games. Based on their impressive performance on Saturday in Nashville, it appears that message has been well-received.

Veteran captain Blake Wheeler tied a franchise-record with a five-point night to lead his club to an all-important 5-2 victory over a talented but wildly undisciplined Predators club that ultimately paid for their sins on this night at Bridgestone Arena. Not to be outdone, franchise centre Mark Scheifele had three points, leading scorer Kyle Connor had a goal and an assist, No. 1 defenceman Josh Morrissey had two helpers, emerging star Pierre-Luc Dubois hit the 20-goal mark and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, playing for a second straight night, made 34 saves.

Add it all up and it was just what the doctor ordered for a Jets team that is now 2-0-1 out of the All-Star break, all against Central Division opponents currently ahead of them in the standings.

“I think since the break there we’ve turned it up a notch a little bit,” said Wheeler, who doubled his season total from two to four goals by lighting the lamp twice, in addition to setting up the other three tallies.

“We feel confident with some of the players that we have that it’s going to come in a matter of time. You have guys doing things that don’t show up in the box score so much. That means everything to our team. A lot of guys have stepped up like that the last few games.”

Winnipeg improves to 20-17-8 on the year and are now within seven points of the final Western Conference wild-card spot currently held by Anaheim. The Jets also have four games in hand on the Ducks. Nashville falls to 28-16-4.

Special teams were the difference in this one, as the Jets went 3-for-8 on the power play while killing off two of the three minors they took. The turning point was an elbowing major against Nashville defenceman Mark Borowiecki near the midway mark of the third period, with the scored deadlocked 2-2. Evgeny Svechnikov was left dazed and bloodied by the blatant head shot and didn’t return to the game.

“I really liked our answer,” said Lowry. “Svech is a character in our room, and the guys love him. You don’t like to see one of your players leave the game. You like to see, when a play like that happens, you like to see the power play be a difference maker.”

Wheeler scored the go-ahead goal that would prove to be the game-winner just 77 seconds into the five-minute power play, parking himself in front of Nashville netminder Juuse Saros and perfectly tipping a Scheifele pass at 10:53. He punctuated scoring just his third goal of a season that has been impacted first by a positive COVID-19 diagnosis in October, and then a serious knee injury in December, with an emphatic celebration.

“It’s been tough for me around the net this year so to have that one hit the net felt good,” said Wheeler. “It was just a great play by pretty much everyone on the power-play there. Everyone had a piece of that. Mark, that was something we had talked about at the break, that there could be an opportunity there for that kind of exact play and he put it right on my tape so that one definitely felt good.”

Rather than be content with just the one, Dubois capitalized 59 seconds later when he ripped a shot past Saros after taking a pass from Wheeler.

“We said at the face-off, the trap sometimes getting a five-minute power play is that you think you have time to score, but what happens is you just are wasting time,” said Dubois, who now has goals on consecutive nights after missing last Tuesday’s 2-0 home-ice win over Minnesota because he got stuck in New York with a positive COVID test coming out of the five-day All-Star break.

“You get out there the first time and you’re soft, odds are the second time you get out there you’re gonna be soft again. So, we wanted to be aggressive, we wanted to score whenever had a chance and we did a really good job of that.”

Wheeler sealed the victory with an empty-netter a few minutes later.

“I think when you’re around 10 minutes left in a hockey game and you’re tied and you have a five minute power play, our power play really had some success. I think we went out there with a lot of confidence knowing that that was the hockey game. We had to bury one,” said Wheeler.

“Obviously having a teammate hurt, you hope he’s OK and it was an unfortunate play but, regardless of the scenario, you have five minutes on the power play with the game on the line, you want to make it count.”

The night certainly ended better than it began, with the Jets quickly digging themselves a 2-0 hole. Mikael Granlund blasted a shot that deflected off a Winnipeg stick at 3:26 of the first period, and then Matt Duchene scored on a power-play wrister at 6:19 that also went off a Jets player on the way in. For a team playing for a second straight night on the road — the Jets fell 4-3 in overtime in Dallas Friday night after Scheifele tied the game with just over 30 seconds left in regulation — this had the potential to go south in a hurry.

“We played at 7:30 last night and then we come back and play at 6 tonight. That first period is always tough and good on them for jumping on us there in the first handful of minutes,” said Wheeler. “Typically, in scenarios like that, if you get out of there, the first period, tied up you’re feeling pretty good. So, we lagged a little bit at the beginning, but then (Hellebuyck) had to make some big saves and keep us hanging around.”

But Scheifele righted the ship at 7:44 of the first, taking a terrific pass from young defenceman Ville Heinola and beating Saros for his 13th of the year. The opening frame also featured a spirited fight between Adam Lowry and Tanner Jeannot after the Nashville rookie forward crushed Heinola with an ugly hit from behind.

The Jets got back on even terms at 9:58 of the second period, with Connor taking a pass from Wheeler and scoring his team-leading 26th, which happened to be his 300th career NHL point in his 350th game. That, too, came on a power play, as Luke Kunin was in the box serving an instigating penalty for jumping rookie Jets forward Kristian Reichel and landing several punches in a one-sided fight.

Kunin was upset after Reichel accidentally ran into him, knocking him into teammate Nick Cousins who suffered a leg injury on the play.

“They’re a hard team to play against. They’re a good team and especially at home here for them,” said Dubois.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve played here but feels like every time you play here, they start off really strong and they’re a physical team, they’re hard to play against. They’re aggressive; they’ve got good skating defenceman. So, obviously, going down 2-0 isn’t how you want to start the game, but we knew they were gonna start hard, and as a game got on, I thought we played better and better. When we lost the momentum, we didn’t panic, and we defended in the middle of the ice and did good things to get the momentum back.”

Lowry rolled the same lineup that skated in Dallas, which meant Kristian Vesalainen, Austin Poganski and Johnathan Kovacevic were the healthy scratches. Nikolaj Ehlers, Logan Stanley, Nathan Beaulieu, David Gustafsson, Dylan Samberg and C.J. Suess all remain on the injured list.

The Jets flew home after the game to get ready to play four straight at Canada Life Centre beginning Monday with a visit from Chicago. Capacity at the downtown rink, which is currently 50 per cent, will increase to 100 per cent as of Tuesday.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg