Jets Nation Recap: Down With The Devils! Jets Win 3-1

The Winnipeg Jets kept things simple on the second half of their first back-to-back of the season and the result was a nice and tidy 3-1 over the New Jersey Devils that again featured a display of solid play from all four lines.

Two games in two nights and two wins.. The perfect season continues!

Much like last night in Boston, the Jets did have a bit of a slow start to the game but it wasn’t as dramatic or as sustained as the Devils got into a bit of penalty trouble midway through the first period and the Jets were able to gain momentum which they carried into the beginning of the second period when Mark Scheifele kicked off the scoring with a laser wrist shot that deflected off a Devil defender stick and past Corey Schneider.

The Jets continued the theme of being a quick strike offense from last night when Blake Wheeler scored about two minutes after on an equally laser-like snap shot that fooled not only Schneider, but the official as well as he initially felt the puck had hit the crossbar when it in fact rang off the back support bar.

The Devils managed to strike back after the Jets took their first penalty of the night with a Jiri Tlusty power play goal that actually skipped off his stick and was inadvertently swept in by Jacob Trouba past Jets goalie Michael Hutchinson.

And again like last night, Winnipeg shut down any hopes the home team had of getting back into a game as Andrew Ladd scored his first of the year on the power play to restore the two goal lead before the second intermission.

The third period was a lock-it-down affair for the Jets as score effects did come into play a little bit, but the defense was fairly good and Hutchinson made a couple of nice saves on some quality Devils scoring chances.

Hutch Was Clutch: It wasn’t an overly busy night for Hutchinson as he made 20 saves on 21 shots, and if we were going to be all “well actually..” about it (and we are) he did technically stop every shot the Devils took on him, so perhaps this is a sorta-kinda shutout? Last season the Jets were able to take kind of goaltending like we saw from Pavelec last night and Hutch tonight and ride it into a playoff spot, so it’s very encouraging to see that early on nothing has changed.

Ehlers Watch: The Dynamic Dane was again impressive as he racked up his first NHL point tonight (first assist on the Scheifele goal) and nearly had his first goal after taking a nice pass from Dustin Byfuglien and getting free on a breakaway only to be stopped by Schnieder. His numbers playing on a line with Scheifele and Mathieu Perreault again were outstanding and if he keeps skating the way he is, goals will come soon enough.

Tape To Tape: No, it’s not just you.. A lot of people have taken notice of not only how fast the Jets are as a team (something we knew last season) but just how crisp and quick the puck movement is with this team. It may be a case of taking advantage of two teams (Boston and New Jersey) with suspect defensive units and we’ll have to see how the Jets do against faster and tighter checking teams in the west, but so far so good!

Jets Individual 5v5 individual statistics:

Shot attempt chart for all minutes:

Shot location chart for all minutes:

Winning is fun right? Yes it is!