Scheifele hits career high in points but Jets lose 3-2

WINNIPEG – Nathan MacKinnon scored his 47^th and 48^th goals of the season leading the Colorado Avalanche to a 3-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre. Mark Scheifele scored twice for the Jets who missed out on a chance to pull within three points of the Nashville Predators who lost to New Jersey tonight, the Preds remain five points up for the final wild card spot in the west. Connor Hellebuyck made 32 saves. The Jets will head out on the road Friday for a four-game road trip that starts Saturday in Denver against the Avalanche.

MOVING PAST STEEN

Mark Scheifele officially played in career game number 951 tonight which moved him past Thomas Steen making him the all-time Jets games played leader.

“Yeah, it's really cool. Honestly, and if you would have told me that when I started my career, don't know if I'd believe you,” said Scheifele.

“But I'm obviously very blessed to get to that point. You know, just have to thank God for keeping me healthy. And just want to keep it going.” 

Naturally, it was Scheifele who opened the scoring in the first period. The Avs turned the puck over and Kyle Connor spotted Scheifele to his left, Scheifele one-timed home his 33^rd of the season and tied a career high with his 87^th point of the season. Connor registered his 50^th assist of the season making him fourth player in Jets/Thrashers history to do so in four consecutive seasons joining Josh Morrissey, Blake Wheeler and Marian Hossa.

ALMOST A HUGE KILL

With the game tied 1–1 late in the second period, the Jets found themselves in trouble after taking back-to-back penalties. Jonathan Toews was first whistled for hooking Ross Colton at 18:07, and just over a minute later, Elias Salomonsson was called for delay of game after sending the puck over the glass at 19:28 while trying to clear the zone. That left Winnipeg needing to survive a 32-second 5-on-3 power play from the Avalanche to close out the period and they did just that giving up just one shot. However, the power play carried over into the third and while the Jets killed the Toews penalty, Nathan MacKinnon tapped in a loose puck over the line to give the Avs a 2-1 lead.

88 FOR 55

After MacKinnon made it 3-1 with his 48^th at 3:55, the Jets challenged that Connor Hellebuyck had been interfered with. After a quick delay, the league ruled that there was no goaltender interference and Winnipeg was given a delay of game penalty. Fortunately for the Jets, they killed off that penalty keeping it a one goal game.

“Yeah, obviously we got some big kills. Bucky made some big saves when we needed him to,” said Scheifele. 

“And, you know, we battled till the end.  I think we showed a lot of resilience against a really good hockey team.”

The Jets pulled to within one off another Colorado turnover at the blueline. Gabe Vilardi spotted Cole Perfetti down low and Perfetti sent a cross-crease pass to Scheifele who scored his second of the night at 9:39 to make it 3-2. The goal gave Scheifele his 88^th point of the season and set a career best in that department.

The Jets could not find a way to beat Mackenzie Blackwood despite having a power play with under seven minutes left in the game.

“Well, Colorado had a lot to do with it too. They got up 3-1 and they were really clogging, they weren’t giving us a whole lot of looks. I liked a lot of how we played. Until we got down in the game, there were a lot of good things happening. We were taking a lot of their game, their speed game, we took a lot of that away. We had our looks, we had some opportunities, not as clean as we’d hoped.