*Photo from the Pehal News*
The Jets were cleared for takeoff to start the weekend. Mark Scheifele scored two goals, Cole Perfetti had 3 assists, and the Winnipeg Jets defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 4-1 victory on Friday night in Pittsburgh.
Recently, the Jets have been taking off quite frequently. They've won two games in a row and 7 of their last 8. Scheifele's two goals, Perfetti's 3 assists, a goal and an assist from Blake Wheeler, and two assists from Dylan DeMelo rounded out the multi point nights for the Jets.
Jets head coach Rick Bowness gave his thoughts, saying "Give the players full marks for responding the way they did, good for them. That was probably about one of the best games we've played all year. It really was, in terms of how we want to play and how you can be successful moving forward. Certainly, no passengers tonight, everyone contributed."
Wheeler kicked off the scoring for the Jets, giving them a 1-0 lead with a power play goal 11:19 into the game, with Perfetti picking up the lone assist. At the 16:42 mark of the period, Drew O'Connor scored his second goal of the season, evening the score 1-1 with the assists coming from Kasperi Kapanen and Jan Rutta.
Late in the second period, Scheifele got things going again, scoring his 25th goal of the season to give the Jets a 2-1 lead with Perfetti and Wheeler assisting. Nikolaj Ehlers scored 22 seconds later to make the lead 3-1, with assists coming from DeMelo and Kyle Connor. Scheifele scored the only goal of the 3rd period to make the score 4-1, with Perfetti and DeMelo assisting.
Scheifele said after the game that "We had our chances, and we didn't capitalize. Those are obviously big. Then in the third period, we buckled down, we did the right thing. We got the puck deep. We made it really, really hard on them to gain the blue line, gain any sustained pressure. If we play like that, we're hard to beat."
Drawing the start in goal for the Jets was David Rittich, who improved his record to 7-4-0 with the road win. Rittich stopped all but one of the 23 shots he faced from the Penguins, posting a .957 save percentage in the win.
Getting the start for the Penguins was Dustin Tokarski, his first start of the season with Tristan Jarry currently injured. Tokarski made 36 saves out of the 40 shots on goal the Jets had, good for a .900 save percentage as his record moved to 1-1-0 in two games.
O'Connor said of the loss that "I think we just didn't limit their chances tonight. I think they had a lot of good looks. I don't really know the exact answer of what we could do different. Will have to look at some film, I think. It was nice to get one and tie it up there. I think we just have to try to lock it down and get some more after that."
Up next, the Penguins play the second half of a back to back on Saturday night, with Casey DeSmith starting against the Carolina Hurricanes. Connor Hellebuyck is projected to start for the Jets when they face the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday.
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