The first-place team in the Central Division played like the first-place team in the Central Division on Thursday night.
The Winnipeg Jets went into Thursday's game (16-7-1) with a percentage of .688, just .053 higher than Dallas (14-7-5) in the race for first in the Central Division, and proceeded to whip the hometown St. Louis Blues 5-2 in the first game of a quick two-game road swing through the U.S. Midwest.
Thanks to Pierre-Luc Dubois' two-goal/three-point night and Connor Hellebuyck's continued brilliance in net, the Jets improved to 17-7-1 and remained in top spot in the division. Dallas beat Ottawa 4-3 in overtime Thursday night to improve to 15-7-5, but the Jets still have a higher win percentage.
The Jets played an almost perfect road game to win their sixth game in seven outings. It was Hellebuyck's sixth straight victory and he has a 2.00 goals against average during that streak. Meanwhile, the Jets have scored 33 goals in their last seven games.
In the first period, St. Louis came out with plenty of jump and took the play to the Jets. However, Winnipeg weathered an early storm and returned the favour. The Jets got better as the period went on and eventually drew first blood when Pierre-Luc Dubois flipped a great pass from teammate Mark Scheifele past St. Louis netmider Thomas Greiss. Darryl Stanley, back in the lineup after a long stint on the IR, added the other assist as Winnipeg got out of the period with a 1-0 lead.
With the assist, Scheifele became the third player in Jets 2.0 history to record 600 points. He did it in his 667th NHL game.
The Jets owned most of the second period. Kyle Connor scored his 11th of the season ripping a perfect wrist shot past Greiss. Mikey Eyssimont and Neal Pionk drew the assists. Then Winnipeg took a 3-0 lead when Blake Wheeler slid home a loose puck from in front of Greiss after the Blues' goaltender stopped a Mark Scheifele shot. Dubois new the other assist, his 15th of the year.
The Blues got back into the game before the second period ended when Robert Thomas beat Hellebuyck on the short side at 18:36. It was Thomas's sixth of the year and with 20 minutes left, it was 3-1 Winnipeg.
The third period provided plenty of nervous moments for the Jets as Hellebuyck made half-a-dozen solid saves early in the period before Dubois scored on the rush at 7:39. Dubois' goal was a writer from a crazy angle to the right of Greiss that fooled the St. Louis netminder. Josh Morrissey with his 23rd assist of the season (in 25 games) and Dylan DeMelo were credited with the helpers as Winnipeg grabbed a 4-1 advantage.
But St. Louis wasn't done. Josh Leivo converted a beautiful pass from Ryan O'Reilly at 10:43 to make it 4-2 and then with almost four minutes remaining, Blues coach. Claude Berube pulled the goaltender and went with six attackers.
The Blues had a couple off solid chances until Cole Perfetti took a pass from Blake Wheeler and found himself all alone in the neutral zone. Perfetti calmly dumped the puck into the empty net to seal the victory.
This was another game in which statistics are for losers. The Blues outshot Winnipeg 31-20 and won 53 per cent of the face-offs, but the Jets scored five times and went one-for-one on the power play while holding St. Louis to zero-for-two. It's amazing that the Jets had the 29th-ranked penalty kill in the NHL last season and are ranked third this year.
Dubois had the best stats line of the night. He had two goals and an assist and was plus-three with two shots, a blocked shot and a takeaway in 16 minutes and 40 seconds of ice time. He also drew the only penalty called against the Blues.
There Jets will play Game 2 of this quick two-game road trip in Chicago on Friday night. Game time is 7:30 p.m. on TSN3.
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