First Place Jets Beat Hawks 3-1 in Chicago

The Winnipeg Jets just keep on winning. Friday night in Chicago, the Jets got two more points from Josh Morrissey, goals from Cole Perfetti, Blake Wheeler and Adam Lowry and a solid goaltending performance from David Rittich as they beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-1. The Central Division's first-place Jets improved to 18-7-1 (8-4-1 on the road) and moved two points ahead of the second-place Dallas Stars with their fourth straight victory and seventh win in their last eight games. The Jet also completed a two-night, two-game road trip with two straight victories after beating St. Louis 5-2 on Thursday night. The Jets are now 3-0-0 against Chicago this season. Last year, the Jets won their 18th game in the 41st game of the season. This year, it took only 26 games to win their 18th. Rick Bowness is already accomplishing a lot in his first season as Jets' head coach. The Jets owned the first period and finally opened the scoring at 15:21 when Cole Perfetti took a nice pass from Josh Morrissey, made a great move in front of the net and beat Hawks goalie Arvid Soderblom to the glove side to make 1-0. The Jets outshot Chicago 13-7 in the opening period and appeared to be in control of the game. Winnipeg made it 2-0 at the 56 second mark off the second period on the power play as Blake Wheeler beat Soderblom, tipping in a shot from the point by, who else? Josh Morrissey. Kyle Connor also drew an assist as the Jets had the Hawks on their heels. But at 11:04, Taylor Raddysh found himself with the puck, alone in front of Jets net minder David Rittich and he made no mistake, beating Rittich high to the stick side to make it 2-1. From that point on, Chicago took over and when Reese Johnson pounded on Dylan DeMelo, the Jets seemed to completely back off. Thanks to Rittich, Winnipeg survived the second period with a one-goal advantage. They outshot Chicago 11-9, but at one point the shots were 10-3 in Winnipeg's favour. Chicago was the better team for the final eight minutes of the period. The Jets went ahead 3-1 at the 12:25 mark of the third period when Jansen Harkins did a terrific job of forechecking, fought and won the puck and then made a brilliant pass to Adam Lowry who buried it behind Soderholm to put it away. The Jets outshot Chicago 32-23 and except for the final eight minutes of the second period, were clearly the best team on the ice. With the victory, Rittich improved to 4-2-0 on the season. The three stars were Morrissey, Wheeler and Lowry. Morrissey now has 25 assists in 26 games and with 30 points is fourth in scoring among defensemen in the NHL. He also had the best stats line of the night with two assists and a plus-two to go with a hit and a blocked shot in 26 minutes and 54 seconds of ice time. On the downside, the Jets lost defenceman Logan Stanley to an injury early in the game and although he played one more shift, he was done after just three minutes of ice time. If he can't go on Sunday, Dylan Samberg will step in and take his place. The Jets play again Sunday evening at Canada Life Centre in downtown Winnipeg against Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. Game time is 6 p.m.