*Photo from Head News*
It's very hard to stop the team from Manitoba right now. Axel Jonsson-Fjallby had a goal and an assist, Gabriel Vilardi had a goal and two assists, and the Winnipeg Jets defeated the Detroit Red Wings with a 5-2 victory on Wednesday night in Winnipeg.
The Jets rode multi point games from Vilardi, Jonsson-Fjallby, and Nikolaj Ehlers to their 7th win in 10 games, with points in 8 of those 10 games. Vilardi in particular is heating up, rattling off 5 goals and 5 assists in his last 4 games.
Jets head coach Rick Bowness said of Vilardi that "You watch him every game, his confidence is growing. He's so good around the net because he hangs on to it. He's so big and strong, got great vision and has patience with the puck of when to pass it and when not to pass it and hang on to it. He's been very, very impressive for us."
Neal Pionk scored the only goal of the first period, giving the Jets a 1-0 lead with his second goal of the season. Olli Maata scored his first goal of the season just 1:44 into the second period to tie the game 1-1. At the 7:41 mark of the second, Ehlers scored his 11th goal of the season, putting the Jets ahead 2-1 with Vilardi and Dylan DeMelo assisting.
Later in the second, Jonsson-Fjallby scored his first goal of the season to pad the Jets lead to 3-1. Vilardi scored at the 16:10 mark of the period to make it a 4-1 lead for the Jets, his 6th goal of the season. Patrick Kane scored in the 3rd period to cut the deficit to 4-2 before a goal from Mark Scheifele made it a 5-2 game.
Starting in net for the Jets was Laurent Brossoit, who got the win to bump his record up to 4-3-1 in 8 starts, with Connor Hellebuyck doing a lot of the work in net. Brossoit stopped 26 of the 28 shots he saw from the Red Wings, good for a .929 save percentage.
Ehlers said of Brossoit's play that "LB, the games that he’s played, he’s been unbelievable. Having two goalies that play the way they do every single night is pretty exciting, and it makes our job a little easier. The saves that he made are pretty impressive."
Getting the start for the Red Wings was James Reimer, who got saddled with the loss to drop to 2-5-2 in 10 games played. Reimer turned aside 36 out of the 41 shots on goal that the Jets sent at him, recording a .878 save percentage in the setback.
Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said of the loss that "We had to come into here and find a way, and we didn’t. We found the opposite way. We lost our zone coverage. We’ve been struggling with that as of late. They exposed us tonight, and we hung Reimer out to dry with backdoors and extended zone shifts for Winnipeg. We’ve really tried it all the last couple of weeks, different line combinations, different coaching coming in hard trying to pump us up, or whatever it is. But it’s got to come from within the room and every guy’s got to be better."
Both teams continue their schedules on Friday night. Hellebuyck is expected to start for the Jets against the Boston Bruins at home, while Reimer is the projected starter for the Red Wings when they host the Philadelphia Flyers.
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