Jets keep Lightning at bay with 4-3 win

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This article was published 15/11/2019 (1616 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TAMPA, Fla. — This is a tell-all road trip for the Winnipeg Jets, a four-game stretch to gauge themselves against some of the NHL’s upper-floor teams.

Two games in, head coach Paul Maurice’s hockey club is proving more than capable. 

Young forwards Jack Roslovic and Nikolaj Ehlers scored 21 seconds apart in the second period and Jets held their ground defensively for the bulk of the afternoon to record a 4-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lighting on Saturday.

Goalie Connor Hellebuyck stopped 31 shots for the Jets (12-8-1), who’ve won six of their last eight games, including two straight regulation victories in Florida to begin the trip. Winnipeg heads to Nashville for a matchup Tuesday night with the Central Division-rival Predators and then plays the Dallas Stars on Thursday.

For the 57 minutes the Jets more than held their own against the powerhouse Lightning, in front of yet another packed, raucous Amalie Arena crowd. Up 3-1, the visitors surrendered two goals with Tampa Bay buoyed by an extra attacker, although sandwiched in between was an empty-netter by Kyle Connor — with his seventh — and a miraculous glove save by Hellebuyck off Ondrej Palat that could lead TV highlight packages for days.

“That might be my save of the year, and then I go and get scored on after (by Anthony Cirelli), so shoot. I’m just having some fun out there,” Hellebuyck said after.

Ultimately, the Jets held on for their seventh road win of the year against just three defeats, and would be no worse than third in the Central following the rest of the evening’s action.

“I thought we were on them, we didn’t give them any easy ice. That’s a team where you give them time and space and they’re going to make you pay for it. We did a great job of gapping tight on them, eliminating some of the plays they make up the ice, and kind of think we had them on their heels most of the (day),” said Jets captain Blake Wheeler, who set up the goals by Roslovic and Ehlers.

“I thought we did awesome (in the third period). We haven’t really had the goalie out at the other end very much this year, so it’s a new thing we have to work on a little bit. But it’s a 3-1 one game for most of that third period against a high-powered team. The resounding emotion is really positive.”

Roslovic scored his fourth goal of the year at 7:18 after a great pass by Andrew Copp, positioned behind the net. Lightning coach Jon Cooper challenged the play, claiming Roslovic had knocked down the puck with a high stick earlier in the sequence. But the goal stood, and the Lightning (9-6-2) were assessed a delay-of-game penalty.

On the ensuing power play, Ehlers walked in from the corner and ripped a seeing-eye shot up high and past goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy at 7:39, his team-leading ninth tally, for a 3-1 lead. The shifty winger has seven goals in nine career games against the Lightning and showed plenty of sizzle in this one, firing five shots on Vasilevskiy.

“It’s not really his spot on that power play but he’s so aggressive that Kyle (Connor) made a nice play kicking it down to him and gave him a little time and space to get a little bit of a better angle and it came out. Just a heck of a shot,” said Wheeler. “That’s going in on anyone so great play by Ehlers.”

The young Danish winger took a couple of wicked whacks but continued to buzz.

“You could see both teams wanted this win, and these games, when they get gritty like that, they’re fun. It’s closer to playoff hockey than usual this early in the season, so we’re happy with the win and now we gotta keep it going,” said Ehlers.

Winnipeg’s aggressive penalty killers, aided by Hellebuyck’s acrobatics, snuffed out two opportunities by the NHL’s second-ranked power-play unit, which is running at a deadly 30.8 per cent. 

Veteran forward Mathieu Perreault opened the scoring for Winipeg just 1:59 into the game with his fifth goal of the year when he tipped a Josh Morrissey point shot past Vasilevskiy.

“It was just a great game throughout three periods. We made it a little more interesting than it needed to be at the end but just a great game. (Hellebuyck) made some great saves again and everybody’s chipping in, working hard and we get results. We know we play a defensive game… we wait for our chances and we know we got guys who can finish.”

Steven Stamkos, one of the league’s finest marksmen of the past three decades, scored a big goal for the Lightning from the comfort of the left faceoff dot — his office. His seventh of the year and 400th of his brilliant 12-year career pulled the hosts to within a goal with 2:16 left in the third.   

It’s not the first time the talented 29-year-old centre has registered a career milestone against the Jets. He rifled his career-best 60th goal of the 2011-12 season past goalie Ondrej Pavelec in the final game of the year at Winnipeg’s downtown rink.

He’s currently 98th in all-time goal scoring, just two shy of tying a trio of retired NHLers, Shane Doan, Paul Kariya and John Ogrodnick.

Victor Hedman also scored for Tampa, while Vasilevskiy finished with 23 saves.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell