Jets beat Blackhawks to earn fourth straight win

CHICAGO - When injuries happen, the personnel game plan is almost thrown out the window. It occurred twice on the Winnipeg Jets two-game divisional road trip, and twice they found a way to win - even on back-to-back nights.
An injury to Saku Maenalanen Thursday in St. Louis left the Jets will 11 forwards, but they beat the Blues 5-2.
On Friday, it was Logan Stanley who went down with a lower-body injury in the first period against the Chicago Blackhawks. That left the Jets with five defencemen, but they also left the United Center with two points after a 3-1 win.
"It's a credit to the coaching staff," said Jets forward Adam Lowry, who scored the insurance marker in the third period. "You're trying to make sure no one gets lost in the shuffle, trying to make sure guys stay as fresh as they can. I think Bones and Arnie did a great job."

Associate coach Scott Arniel sent that credit right back to the players though, as they found a way to earn victory on the back half of a back-to-back for the third time this season, and are now 3-1-0 in that situation.
"Everybody stepped up," he said. "The forwards did a good job of not making it too hard on them. They rolled them over pretty good. We didn't spend a whole lot of time in our end."
The Jets (18-7-1) are now 10-2-0 against the Central Division this season, and two points clear of the Dallas Stars for top spot. By points percentage, the Jets are the top team in the Western Conference after stringing together four straight wins.
Along with Lowry's goal, Cole Perfetti and Blake Wheeler found the back of the net for the Jets.
"We can't be trading chances and having a little bit of a track meet on those back to backs," said Perfetti. "We're playing smart, playing above them, playing behind their goal line, stuff like that that we did tonight will work to our advantage. That's why we're finding success right now."

Speaking of success, a successful Josh Morrissey pinch at the Chicago line helped set up the game's opening goal, as the Jets defenceman took the puck from Blackhawks forward Philipp Kurashev at the blue line then found Perfetti high in the zone. Perfetti attacked the slot, faking a shot and going around Ian Mitchell before snapping his sixth of the campaign past Arvid Soderblom.
The goal, which came 15:21 into the first, moved Perfetti into second in NHL rookie scoring.
"J-Mo made a great slip play, saw I had five, six feet of open ice and figured I gotta get the goalie moving," Perfetti said. "It's hard to beat a goalie straight on, so just tried to get him moving side to side and then shoot back across the grain. It ended up working."
In the second, the Jets made Chicago pay for a Jack Johnson penalty from late in the first. Morrissey was involved in this one as well, as his slapshot was deflected in front of Soderblom by Blake Wheeler to make it 2-0.
It was the seventh straight game the Jets had lit the lamp on the man advantage.

With 8:56 left in the second, Chicago pulled within one. Taylor Raddysh nabbed the puck in the slot after a block by Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, and snapped it past the blocker of David Rittich to make the score 2-1.
That was the only puck that beat Rittich, who finished with 22 saves for his fourth win of the season.
"Ritty was great," Arniel said. "When he can come in on a tough situation, one defenceman out, back-to-backs, he did a great job for us. And he had to make some big stops there, especially in that second period."
With Stanley already out, Dylan DeMelo spent six minutes in the penalty box in the second, dropping the Jets down to four defencemen during that stretch. Four of the five defencemen played at least 20 minutes, with Morrissey at a game high 26:54.

"The good part is that especially with (Nate Schmidt) playing the left and the right side, we had different units going out with those guys," said Arniel. "They were real good about it and they were keeping their shifts real short. We didn't really get hemmed in too much."
Adam Lowry gave the Jets an insurance marker with 7:35 remaining in regulation, at the end of a strong shift from his line with Morgan Barron and Jansen Harkins. To cap it off, Harkins circled the Chicago net and spotted Lowry in the right circle, and he put it right on his teammate's tape. Lowry made no mistake, going high on the short side to beat Soderblom, giving Lowry six goals on the season.
"That was just an unbelievable pass there," Lowry said of the Harkins feed. "That was a good shift for us. We were talking about trying to make a difference in the game a couple of shifts before in the third period.
"Ultimately, it was a big goal for us."
With all four possible points from the road trip, the Jets head home to host the Washington Capitals on Sunday.