Next day takeaways: 3 thoughts as the Winnipeg Jets win 10th straight on Mark Scheifele’s OT winner

It took until the final 25 seconds of the game, but the Winnipeg Jets finally cracked Vitek Vanecek with a Josh Morrissey slapshot and tied the game at one. Then, in overtime, it was the storybook ending, as Mark Scheifele scored his 32nd goal of this season and 329th goal of his career, passing Ilya Kovalchuk for the all-time franchise scoring lead. 

Oh, and I haven’t yet mentioned that this win was the Jets’ 10th in a row, extending their franchise-record-setting winning streak another game. 

Mark Scheifele becomes the franchise’s all-time leading goal scorer

With the game-winning goal, Mark Scheifele now sits atop the Jets/Thrashers franchise’s all-time goal-scoring list. Scheifele has said a handful of times that the record he is chasing is his idol’s, Dale Hawerchuk, who scored 379 goals with the 1.0 Winnipeg Jets. 

He was asked what his 17-year-old self would’ve thought if he had been told that he would break this record, to which he said: 

“He wouldn’t believe it, that’s for sure,” Scheifele said. “A kid from Kitchener, playing with the Kitchener Dutchman way back when I was 16, I never would have believed you. All you’ve got to do is trust in God’s plan and that’s what I’ve done. Obviously, I am very grateful for my family, the Winnipeg Jets organization. They were the ones who trusted in me. I just want to keep on playing well for them.”

Scheifele was the franchise’s first-ever draft pick and has committed to them on long-term contracts twice. He’s in the first year of a seven-year contract extension, meaning that there are sure to be many more Mark Scheifele goals here in Winnipeg. 

“Yeah, that’s a great accomplishment,” Arniel said. “It just shows the longevity, how long he’s played throughout his career. He should be real proud of what he’s done so far, but he’s got lots more to go. But to do it on a game-winner in overtime, he’ll remember that one.”

Josh Morrissey dominates in his first game back

Josh Morrissey returned to the lineup on this night after not playing in Saturday’s game, and simply put, he took this game over. He played a total of 29:35 in this game, and as Dimitri Filipovic of the Hockey PDOcast pointed out on Twitter, Morrissey played 7:52 of the final 11:23, which is incredible. 

He scored with 25 seconds left in the game on a slapshot from the left point. That concluded a 2:02 shift in which he almost certainly would’ve played the rest of the way had that goal not gone in.

Considering he was too ill to play in the Four Nations Face-Off Finals just four days ago, this was an incredibly impressive performance from Morrissey. 

In Morrissey’s 24:31 even-strength minutes, the Jets led in the following categories: 

– Goals: 2-0
– Shot attempts: 36-15
– Scoring chances: 17-7
– High-danger chances: 11-3
– Expected goals percentage: 62.29%

The Sharks are the 32nd-ranked team in the NHL, and the Jets dominated play for the majority of this game, but it was clear from start to finish that Morrissey was the best player on the ice. 

Yeah, he’s a tough guy to pull off the ice,” Arniel said. “He wants to be in those situations. We spent a lot of time just on their end, so it wasn’t like he had to race up and down the ice. Don’t always ever want to get yourself caught in that, but at the end of the day that’s one thing about Josh. His recovery is amazing. He said this morning he felt like he was 100 percent. So don’t always want to go quite that high with the minutes, but it certainly paid off.”

The Jets’ second line continues their solid play

The Winnipeg Jets’ second line of Nikolaj Ehlers, Vladislav Namestnikov, and Cole Perfetti was red-hot heading into the break. Now coming out of the break, they’ve continued their strong play, despite their lack of production last night. 

As a line, they had 11:04 of five-on-five minutes last night. The Jets led in shots on goal 7-0 in their minutes, the scoring chances 7-2, high-danger chances 6-1, and shot attempts 16-4. 

This line had the offensive explosion early in the season when they played the Sharks, and if it weren’t for a few odd bounces this time around, they could have had a big night. They put forward another strong offensive outing that resulted in little to nothing on the scoresheet. 

It is worth noting that this line is playing better as the games continue to pass by, especially since we are now 10 days away from the NHL trade deadline. The continuing conversation of whether or not the Jets will look to pick up a second-line centre may be influenced by how these players play in the next 10 days. 

Up next:

The Jets now hit the road for a back-to-back, starting on Wednesday against the Ottawa Senators and finishing up Thursday against the Nashville Predators. They’ll look to continue their franchise record-setting winning-streak. 

Stay tuned to Illegalcurve.com for all the latest Jets and Moose news throughout the week.