Scheifele has 3 points, powers Jets past Blues

WINNIPEG -- Mark Scheifele had two goals and an assist, and the Winnipeg Jets hung on for a 3-1 win against the St. Louis Blues at Canada Life Centre on Tuesday.

“Just to get the win is huge for our group. We just need to keep it rolling,” Scheifele said. “We just kind of stuck to our game and didn’t try to do anything too crazy, and just stuck with it.”

Josh Morrissey had a goal and two assists, Kyle Connor had two assists, and Eric Comrie made 22 saves for the Jets (20-23-6), who have points in six of seven (5-1-1).

“First of all, [Comrie] made a lot of really big saves,” Scheifele said. “[He] played fantastic. He made a lot of big saves when we needed him to.”

Jordan Kyrou scored and Joel Hofer made 13 saves for the Blues (19-23-8), who have lost five of seven (2-5-0).

“I thought we had a better effort today than we did last game,” Kyrou said. “Obviously, we've still got to work on scoring. We're not really scoring many goals right now and we've just got to keep trying to improve on that.”

With Blues forward Nathan Walker assessed a double minor penalty for high-sticking Jets defenseman Isaak Phillips, Winnipeg scored two power-play goals in a span of 1:33 in the first period.

Morrissey scored first to make it 1-0 Jets at 9:52, when his one-timer off a pass from Scheifele from the point made its way through traffic and ripped past Hofer.

“I think those are games where the details of your team game have to be on,” Morrissey said. “Special teams obviously, getting the two power-play goals there is huge. We gave up one on the kill, but I thought it did a good job, and then just grinding, battling through it. It might not be the prettiest night, but finding a way to get those two points, which is kind of what we've been talking about a lot lately. So we did a good job of just sticking with our game. And rolling the lines in the 'D' and kind of that greasy, greasy game that got us the two points.”

Scheifele then pushed it 2-0 at 11:25, walking in from the corner and lifting the puck over Hofer’s shoulder and tucking it under the crossbar with a snap shot from in close.

“I just kind of saw some space up there,” Scheifele said. “He was crouching a little bit. I just tried to put it in the right spot.”

Kyrou cut it to 2-1 at 17:23 of the second period, scoring on the power play with a one-timer from the top edge of the left circle.

“They got two really nice power-play goals, we only got one,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “That was the difference in the game. I thought 5-on-5, we had a lot of really good looks. And again, goal scoring’s an issue. We’ve got to keep going to the hard areas and staying in the hard areas.

“We’ve got to hit the net, we don’t have to be perfect. The way we’re converging at the net 5-on-5 and the way we’re converging on the power play tonight, if we hit the net, there’s going to be rebounds there. Then we’ve got to win those battles in those hard areas.”

Winnipeg went 2-for-3 on the penalty kill and is now 15-for-16 through its past seven games.

“That was a big turning point for me,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “Those are moments within games, especially this time of year, specialty teams can win you games and I think they did for us. Other nights, it’s just all 5-on-5, some nights it’s goaltending. Tonight, I would say specialty teams (was) the difference.”

Scheifele scored into an empty net at 17:37 of the third period with a wrist shot for the 3-1 final.

“They got two on the power play — it would have been nice for us to kind of even the score in that department,” Blues defenseman Justin Faulk said. “Obviously, it would have been the game, too, and do a little bit more there tonight.”

NOTES: Kyrou’s ninth goal of the season was his first since Dec. 1, ending a 13-game drought. … Morrissey became the second defenseman in Jets/Thrashers franchise history to score 90 career goals, joining Dustin Byfuglien (122).