Just over a week ago in Utah, the Winnipeg Jets played perhaps their worst game of the season. They haven’t lost since.
The Jets extended their win streak to four games Tuesday night in Montreal as they bested the Canadiens 4-1 to start a three-game road trip.
The Jets had an extremely slow start and were badly outplayed for much of the opening period, but after allowing the game’s first goal, the Jets scored four unanswered markers for their seventh victory in their last nine games.
“The first 10 minutes Montreal came out really hard, and had us on our heels, and we spent a lot of time in our end of the rink,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “But we finally got back and got playing our game. We did a better job of getting through the neutral zone and got our forecheck going.
“At the end of the day that was pretty much what turned that second period around. We got pucks in and got after them and created the zone time and got them on the heels. It wasn’t real clean and crisp in the third, but at the end of the day, we did what we needed to do.”
Kyle Connor scored twice, while Mark Scheifele and Rasmus Kupari also found the net in the win. Connor and Scheifele are now tied for the team lead with 29 goals apiece.
The Canadiens had five of the first six shots on goal of the game as they outshot the Jets 15-7 in the first period.
“Definitely a slow start,” said Scheifele. “Not what we’re looking for but the back half of that first period we kinda got going, had a good second period, and just kinda rolled with it.”
The Jets turned the tables on the Canadiens in the middle frame with a 13-3 shot advantage and scored a backbreaker with just over a second left in the second period to take a two-goal lead.
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“We simplified it through the neutral zone and just kinda supported each other more,” Connor said. “Talked on our breakouts and just made a couple adjustments and once we got rolling, playing in the offensive zone, you could see the type of damage we can create.”
David Gustafsson recorded one assist to give him a four-game point streak after not registering a single point in his first 16 games of the season until last week.
Scheifele was booed throughout the game with the Montreal fans still holding ill will for his hit on Jake Evans following an empty-net goal in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“You don’t even really hear it, to be honest,” said Scheifele. “It’s a fantastic rink to play in. Obviously a lot of history with the Canadiens. So, you kinda drown it out. Once and awhile if there’s no pressure on you and you hear it a little bit, you laugh a little bit.”
The Jets weren’t assessed a penalty the entire game and went 0-for-3 on the man advantage themselves.
Montreal was the much stronger team out of the gate, spending lots of time in Winnipeg’s end and controlling play before opening the scoring at the 11:03 mark.
An initial rush chance from Cole Caufield was stopped by Connor Hellebuyck, sending the rebound to the corner. Several Jets players collapsed on Caufield, who spotted Nick Suzuki open behind the net. Montreal’s captain got the puck and quickly fed a wide-open Juraj Slafkovsky in the slot for the game’s first goal.
The Canadiens outshot the Jets 13-4 over the first 13 minutes of the game before Winnipeg started to play better, and their red-hot top line got the game back on level ground late in the period.
A point shot from Dylan DeMelo resulted in a net-front scramble, where Connor was first to locate the puck before depositing it past Sam Montembeault at the 15:36 mark for his 28th goal of the campaign.
Montreal managed to kill off a late penalty to send the game to intermission tied 1-1 with the Habs still ahead on the shot counter 15-7, but Winnipeg’s strong play to finish off the period carried over into the second.
Scheifele gave the Jets their first lead of the night with 9:16 to go in the second. He won a faceoff in the Montreal end, the puck going back to the point where Josh Morrissey slid it along the boards. Gabriel Vilardi tracked it down below the goal line and fed Scheifele in front, who knocked it home for his 29th of the season.
It looked like it would stay 2-1 going into the third before the Jets struck in the dying moments of the second. Connor dumped the puck into Montreal’s end and Gustafsson, fresh off the bench, flew into the zone and won a puck battle before feeding Connor in the slot for his second of the night with just 1.5 seconds to go in the period.
Montreal pushed to get back in the game in the third, and roughly seven minutes into the frame they had two great chances as Lane Hutson rang a shot square off the post and Suzuki was denied from point-blank range by Hellebuyck after the Jets mishandled the puck and turned it over deep in their own end.
After the Canadiens killed off a third Winnipeg power play, they had perhaps their best chance of the period when Josh Anderson was sprung on a breakaway but he missed the net on a backhand.
Montreal pulled Montembeault for an extra attacker with just over two minutes left but it didn’t take long for Winnipeg to seal the win with an empty netter. Nikolaj Ehlers carried the puck out of his own end before feeding Kupari, who skated the puck into the net for his fourth goal of the season to secure the victory with 1:45 left.
Hellebuyck turned aside 24 shots as he picked up his 31st win of the season.
The Jets will look to extend their win streak to five when they visit Boston Thursday night. Puck drop is just after 6 p.m. with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB starting at 4 p.m.