Winnipeg Jets kick off homestand with impressive 6-2 win over the Avalanche to move into top spot in Central

A big win by Winnipeg as they handle Colorado picking up a 6-2 victory to take over 1st in the Central. What a game by the Jets. They are 8-3-0 vs the Central and 18-9-2 overall.

For those who would like to take a deeper dive into the advanced stats click here to see the results from the game via Natural Stat Trick.

Notable:

For the first time ever the Canadian national anthem was sung in Punjabi (and English) at a major professional sporting event. Celebrating South Asian Heritage night here in Winnipeg.

With tonight’s appearance Connor Hellebuyck moved into a tie for 9th on the Jets All-Time games played list with 467. Ties fellow Michiganite Andrew Copp. Top goalie on Jets 1.0 was Bob Essensa (281).

Not a lot of shots were getting through in the opening period of play (6-6) but the home team made the ones they did get through including a beauty of passing play by Josh Morrissey, Mark Scheifele and Gabriel Vilardi and then a power play goal by Vlad Namestnikov off a nice pass by Alex Iafallo.

I continue to maintain that Alex Iafallo has the best Jets goal song and he let us hear it with one hell of a backhand shot.

It may be a hockey game but Bluejays pitcher Erik Swanson was attending his first ever Jets game. Said it was on his bucket list to see a Jets game in Winnipeg. Called the atmosphere at Canada Life “electric”. 

Pretty remarkable that once the Jets hit the five goal mark of this game all five of those goals had been scored by players who were acquired within the last year (Vilardi x2, Namestnikov, Iafallo and Niederreiter).

Also with the score at 5-2 I  tweeted this thought: “How many folks would have believed the Jets would score ten goals in the two games following Kyle Connor’s injury. There was lots of hand wringing about where goals would come from. How Winnipeg would have to win more low scoring games. Guess team didn’t get memo.” (Note: I would also be wrong because it’s been three games since his injury so it’s 13 goals in three games).

Felt like this was Alex Iafallo’s most impactful game (in all three zones) as a member of the Jets. Both ends of the ice he’s been really effective.

Mark Scheifele remains on pace for 62 assists this season which would be a career high for him. Josh Morrissey right behind him on a 59 assist pace. That would actually not be a career high as he had 60 last season.

Multi Point Game:

Gabriel Vilardi 2G
Nikolaj Ehlers 1G 1A
Alex Iafallo 1G 1A
Vlad Namestnikov 1G 1A
Mark Scheifele 2A
Josh Morrissey 2A

Highlights:

Coach post-game media:

Illegal Curve Post-Game Show:

Up next:

The Jets were scheduled to practice tomorrow at hockey for all centre as they got ready to continue their homestand tomorrow night against the Canadiens but they will cancel it given the win this evening. Start your day with the Morning Papers which will go live at 7 am tomorrow on illegalcurve.com.

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