The Winnipeg Jets beat the Sharks to get back in the win column

Key sentence:

• The Jets avoided a season-series sweep with a 4-1 win in Winnipeg on Thursday night after dropping two games in San Jose in October.
• Harkins scored his second goal of the season with 44 seconds left in the stanza, tapping in a ball from Lowry.

The Winnipeg Jets have finally defeated the San Jose Sharks.

The Jets avoided a season-series sweep with a 4-1 win in Winnipeg on Thursday night after dropping two games in San Jose in October.

With the win, Winnipeg (7-3-3, 3rd Central Division) ended a two-game losing streak and has now got the point in 10 of their last 11 games.

Pierre-Luc Dubois had been held off the scoresheet for the prior three games after scoring at least one point in eight of the first nine matches, but he came back with a goal and an assist in the win. 

With Kyle Connor and Evgeny Svechnikov on his line, he remained threatening, with Connor scoring for the second game in a row.

The Jets went behind 1-0 in the first period but rallied to score four unanswered goals the rest of the way, and the game only got better as it progressed.

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“From the second half on, we were really good,” remarked head coach Paul Maurice. “On our forecheck, we got a little more physical. More pucks have been added to the wall. 

We were given more zone time. We were good in the second half of the game, which thrilled me because the first half of that game looked like sections of another game when it might have gone anyway and didn’t.”

The game was deadlocked late in the second period until the Jets scored two goals less than five minutes apart, with Jansen Harkins putting them up by two goals with only 44 seconds left.

“Going into the third period with a two-goal lead is a lot easier,” Adam Lowry said. “You’re feeling better, and you’ve been rewarded for taking some risks.”

Nate Schmidt scored his first goal with the Jets, and the timing couldn’t have been better, as his parents were in the audience for the first time at the Canada Life Centre.

“It’s always very cool when you design something up, and it works out,” Schmidt remarked. “Mom and dad were also in attendance tonight, so it was our first game in Winnipeg.” My mother’s whistling could be heard. Seriously, it’s as if you’ve been doing it since you were a kid.”

Andrew Cogliano secured his second goal of the season just over six minutes into the contest for the Sharks. But it would be the Sharks’ only victory over Connor Hellebuyck.

Later in the first period, Connor slammed the net and buried a rebound. Connor has scored 10 goals in the first 13 games of the season, a feat not accomplished by a Jets player since Igor Korolev in 1995-96.

Schmidt secured his first goal of the season with under six minutes left in the second period, firing a point shot past Sharks goalkeeper James Reimer.

Harkins scored his second goal of the season with 44 seconds left in the stanza, tapping in a ball from Lowry.

Late in the third period, Dubois added an empty-netter for his eighth of the season.

Andrew Copp (2 A) and Dubois (1 G, 1 A) also had multi-point nights. Copp now has 14 points in 13 games this season.

Hellebuyck made 26 stops in the win, while Reimer, a Morweena, Man. native, saved 30 shots.

Due to an injury, Paul Stastny will miss his second straight game.

On a season-high seven-game homestand, Winnipeg improved to 3-1-1.

The Jets’ next game is on Saturday night against the red-hot Los Angeles Kings (6 p.m., 680 CJOB).

The Kings have won seven straight games since losing to the Jets in Los Angeles on October 28.

Source: Global News

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