Wheeler records four points as Jets win in Stastny's 1,000th game

WINNIPEG - Paul Stastny's memories of his 1,000th NHL game will be plentiful - from having his wife and two kids on the ice with him to receive the silver stick, to the heartwarming messages from his parents on the scoreboard - but his teammates wanted to be sure he had one extra memory to go along with it:
A win.
Captain Blake Wheeler all but ensured that for his long-time friend. He put up his 10th career four-point night as the Winnipeg Jets (29-23-3) shutout the Vancouver Canucks 5-0 on Tuesday night.
"Stas is the type of guy that goes about his business. He doesn't say a whole lot, doesn't command the spotlight or a whole lot of attention. His teammates respect the hell out of him for it," said Wheeler. "It was a night that was kind of a galvanizing sort of moment for our team. We wanted to have a good night for him. We wanted it to be a memorable night for him."
Mission accomplished.

Stastny didn't get on the scoresheet on his big night, though he nearly had an assist in his opening shift if not for a diving save by Braden Holtby.

Overall, Stastny played 15:50 on a night when he became the 354th player in NHL history to hit 1,000 games.
"I try to be a good hockey player, but first and foremost I try to be a good person and have good character, good values, good morals. That's something that both my parents bestowed upon me, and my in-laws bestowed upon my wife," said Stastny. "When you see the reaching out and outpouring of love and support from all these people, whether I went to grade school with, college with, crossed paths with in junior or professional or international, that's pretty cool. It's unique."
There was one pre-game message that was kept behind closed doors, and that came from head coach Paul Maurice - a speech made to his team who had lost nine of its last 10, but wanted desperately to put on a good performance for a beloved teammate.
"I would say the best ones are the ones where you just tell the truth," Maurice said of his speech, after learning Wheeler called it one of his all-time best. "I think what we went through is really, really important. And we have a far, far better chance of winning now than we did three weeks ago. And none of that has anything actually to do with the words that I used. That was the kind of underlying feel that I had going to the room, just to convey that to the team."

It worked, because after the emotional pre-game ceremony, the Jets got right to work.
First, they took advantage of a Canucks line change 7:48 into the opening period. Dylan DeMelo sent a stretch pass into the neutral zone that Wheeler deflected between two Canucks sticks and hit Kyle Connor in stride. Bursting up the left wing with speed, Connor got in on a partial break and beat Braden Holtby between the legs to put the Jets up 1-0.
After going seven games without a goal, Connor now had goals in two straight, and 24 on the season.
Wheeler doubled the Jets lead in the second, pouncing on a loose puck in the right circle after Neal Pionk's wrist shot was blocked. The Jets captain had wide open space in front of him and drove right in front of the Canucks net untouched, beating Holtby with a quick move to the backhand.
Wheeler's 14th of the campaign gave the Jets a 2-0 lead.

"The first few goals were kind of our identity," said Wheeler. "Nothing special through the neutral zone, just make their D turn, go get the puck and just forecheck them and force them into making mistakes. From there, getting a good bounce to go your way, things will open up and nice to see it go in."
If that wasn't enough, Wheeler added another assist to his impressive night. This time, his one-timer from the point was deflected by Mark Scheifele in front of Holtby to increase the lead to 3-0 with 11:27 left in the second.
Scheifele's 21st of the season extended his point streak to four games and gave every player on that line a five-on-five goal in the game.

Wheeler capped off his four-point night by finishing a give-and-go play with Connor with 9:16 to go in the game. In total, the trio of Wheeler, Scheifele, and Connor combined for nine points.
It was a reward richly deserved after not having the bounces go their way for so long.
"You've got to give the guys a lot of credit for keep pushing and just keep doing the right things and doing the same things, because ultimately when it comes to playoff time it's a lot harder to score goals," said Wheeler. "And that's the way you score goals, just keep doing the same things over and over again with that blind faith that you're going to get rewarded for it."

Mason Appleton added his 11th of the season, a turn around wrist shot from the left circle, just 70 seconds after Wheeler's marker to increase the Jets' lead to 5-0.
To top it all off, Connor Hellebuyck stopped all 24 shots he faced to earn his fourth shutout of the season.
There was no way the Jets were letting Stastny, and his family, leave the building without a win.
Stastny said Maurice had a big part in that.
"He always does a good job of intertwining something special -- my 1000th game -- with how we're trying to build our game, with the way we're playing," said Stastny. "To me, he has a lot of impactful speeches -- stuff that I'll remember, always -- that when you're younger you probably wouldn't pay attention but as you're older, you realize how important some of these things are that he's talking about."