Thank goodness the NHL doesn’t reward points based on style because the Jets 3-0 victory over the Anaheim Ducks wouldn’t have earned any. It was a muck and grinders special all game long, and saw Connor Hellebuyck make 29 stops for his first shutout of the season as the Jets extend their winning streak to four games.

A fairly even-ish isn’t if not dull period of hockey as both teams struggled to complete passes and maintain any puck possession in the offensive zones. The Jets do get a power play and it’s an awful looking dump and chase style that features mostly dump but very little chase and even less puck retrieval. They do get a break while up a man though as a shot that went wide jumps over the stick of Kyle Connor and onto the stick of Mark Scheifele who puts the Jets up by one.

The quality of play doesn’t improve by a whole lot in the second, but the Jets and Ducks start to remember that they don’t like each other a whole lot as chippy play leads to more penalties that neither team is able to take advantage of. A person that looks at a glass half full would suggest that both team’s defenses were effective in stopping rushes at the blue line and keeping pucks to the outside of zones, but someone with a more pessimistic view might have argued that both team’s offenses struggled to string together even more than two passes in a row.

The Ducks carry most of the play when things are 5v5 as the Jets struggled with zone exits and at times were pinned in their own side of the ice. A better offensive team may have made Winnipeg pay for the sloppy play in their own end, but thankfully the Ducks aren’t that team and what chances they did have were turned aside by Hellebuyck.

The one positive trait that the Jets have had pretty much all season is the ability to score in bunches and early on in periods which may not seem like much of a positive trait, but a look at how Vegas played at times last season is a reminder that picking up a quick goal or two is a great way to shut a team down before they even get going. After Kyle Connor tips home a Tyler Myers shot from distance, and Nik Ehlers gets a gift from John Gibson who had an awful angle trying to stop an awkward shot, the Ducks really didn’t get much going by the way of offense afterwards and in fact it’s the Jets that have a slight edge in scoring chances and high danger chances in the third period.