Game 4: Jets 4 Canucks 2 post-game report

It was a ho-hum first period of play.  Marko Dano took an unwise penalty when he interfered with Markus Granlund, despite the fact that Dmitry Kulikov had the angle.  Daniel Sedin made the Jets pay with a power play marker.  The Jets kept up the pressure and about a minute and a half later Josh Morrissey banked home a shot to tie the game.

The 2nd period was fairly unexciting period of play for the first 15 minutes.  Then Bryan Little made a heads up stop and pass to Patrik Laine who made no mistake to put the Jets up 2-1 with his second goal of the season.  Just three minutes later Tyler Myers scored the first shorthanded goal of his career after a heads up pass by Andrew Copp to give Winnipeg a 3-1 lead.  It was also the 199th point of Myers career.  While it didn’t seem like it, the Canucks out shot the Jets in the middle frame, however Connor Hellebuyck stood tall and made all 12 saves that he faced.

The 3rd period was what you would expect.  Canucks pressed.  Tanev (the one who wears a Vancouver uniform) scored an odd goal when he shot a knuckler from the blueline which dipped under Connor Hellbuyck to bring the Canucks within one with about seven minutes to go in the 3rd.  The Canucks pressed hard out shooting the Jets 12-5 in the final frame but Connor Hellebuyck was solid making 30 saves total and Nikolaj Ehlers scored his fourth goal of the season with 4.2 seconds to go to give the Jets a 4-2 lead.  Bryan Little finished with two assists and a 65% face off winning rating.

After dropping the first couple of games to start the season 0-2 the Jets have won two straight and are now 2-2 after four games.  Hellebuyck has been excellent in the two wins with .949 save percentage against Edmonton and .938 against Vancouver.  The team returns to Winnipeg for three straight games starting with a Saturday night contest (6 pm puck drop) at Bell MTS Place against the Carolina Hurricanes.

For those who would like to take a deeper dive into the advanced stats here are the results from tonight’s game via Natural Stat Trick.

Audio:

Blake Wheeler

Nikolaj Ehlers

Connor Hellebuyck

Coach Maurice:  What stood out from Connor Hellebuyck’s game tonight?  How pleased is he with the road effort from his team?  Did he know Myers could pick the corner like that?  On what the Jets shorthanded goals do for the club.  On getting a victory when the top line doesn’t produce.  Discipline.  On the play of Bryan Little.  Getting two straight wins.

All audio courtesy of TSN 1290 Winnipeg.