A five-day break between games will be much easier for the Winnipeg Jets to enjoy thanks to a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Wild on Friday night at MTS Place.
It also doesn’t hurt that the Jets were paced to that win thanks to two Patrik Laine power play goals and some strong work between the pipes from Connor Hellebuyck.
The win was also the 600th of Jets Head Coach Paul Maurice’s career (tonight we’ll ignore the fact he’s six losses away from the all-time record for most losses by a head coach) and the game-winner came off the stick of Blake Wheeler who scored the 200th goal of his career.
It was also the NHL debut of Brendan Lemieux – son of former super-pest and all-time playoff performer Claude – and he didn’t do too bad for himself seeing third line duty.
Winnipeg jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on two very quick goals from Laine and Nik Ehlers who scored less than two minutes apart.
They did stumble late in the first period and then for a good part of the second period as they are want to do, giving up three consecutive Wild goals, but Patrik Laine’s second of the night tied things up going into the final frame.
The Jets thought they had a go-ahead goal halfway through the period when a mass crashing of the net looked like it resulted in a Mark Scheifele goal, but the officials deemed incidental goaltender interference prevented Dubnyk from making a save, so the goal was waved off.
A few minutes later, a beautiful pass from Kyle Connor – who it should be noted looked very at home on the top line with Wheeler and Scheifele – sprung Wheeler all alone in front and he made no mistake on the play to help secure two points for the Jets.

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Stats and charts courtesy of HockeyStats.ca