2425-Three_Things Heritage_VAN

WINNIPEG – Kyle Connor scored the sixth hat trick of his career as the Winnipeg Jets beat the Vancouver Canucks 6-1 at Canada Life Centre. The Jets top line of Connor (3G, 1A), Mark Scheifele (1G, 1A) and Gabe Vilardi (3A) combined for nine points. Scheifele extended his personal point streak to six games and now has more goals (26) than he had the entire season in 2023-24. Nino Niederreiter (1G, 1A), Cole Perfetti (2A) and Neal Pionk also had multi point nights. Connor Hellebuyck made 23 saves for his league leading 27th win of the season, Winnipeg will host Seattle on Thursday night.

ALL KC IN THE FIRST

The Jets were looking to get off to another good start against one of the best road teams in the NHL and Kyle Connor made sure of that. Connor scored not once, not twice but three times in the opening frame in a 6:38 span that saw the Jets get out to a 3-0 lead.

Blake Wheeler’s hat trick against the Penguins in October of 2017 was in 4:20, Connor did it in 6:38. Sean Monahan has the franchise record for fastest natural hat trick, he scored three goals in Calgary also in the first period in a 5:17 span. Gabe Vilardi recorded the primary assist on all three of Connor’s goals.

VAN@WPG: Connor has a hat trick against the Canucks

SHUTTING DOWN ANOTHER ELITE D-MAN

Saturday night the Jets shut down the top scoring defenceman in the league, Cale Makar of the Avalanche and also didn’t allow him to get a shot on goal. Tuesday night, Quinn Hughes who entered the night third in defence scoring (47 points) did not get on the scoresheet and ended the night -1 with a couple of shots on goal. Winnipeg’s commitment to defence has really been on display the last three home games.

KUPARI LINE

The Lowry line got some much-deserved attention on Saturday after containing MacKinnon, Rantanen and Drouin in the 3-0 win over Colorado. Another newly formed line of Rasmus Kupari, Nino Niederreiter and Cole Perfetti had a productive night in their second game as a unit against the Canucks.

“Tonight was a really good step in the right direction. I think there’s still a lot of things that we could have done a little bit better,” said Cole Perfetti who recorded his 100th career point.

“But we were happy with how we kind of gelled tonight, we’re reading off each other and making plays.”

VAN@WPG: Niederreiter scores goal against Kevin Lankinen