Winnipeg Jets stifle Kraken, Brossoit gets shutout in 3-0 win – Winnipeg | Globalnews.ca

After falling to the Seattle Kraken at home on Tuesday, members of the Winnipeg Jets admitted that they needed to tighten up defensively.

They did that in spades in the rematch in Seattle, shutting down the Kraken in a 3-0 win for their 40th victory of the season.

Mark Scheifele, Adam Lowry, and Nikolaj Ehlers scored the goals for the Jets as they outshot the Kraken 32-17.

“I thought that we were better defensively tonight,” said Josh Morrissey. “I thought that our first game of the back-to-back with these guys, we gave them a lot off the rush, sort of easy offence which were high danger opportunities.

“I thought we did a better job tonight of not giving them as many. They’re a dangerous rush team and they’ve got a lot of speed and for us, I thought we did a better job tonight of doing that.”

The Jets recorded 19 blocked shots to give them their seventh win in their last nine games.

“We did a much better job of protecting the middle of the ice,” said Jets head coach Rick Bowness. “And our forwards did a great job back checking for the most part, and putting pressure on them and our D (defence) were able to stand up and for the most part, we were forcing them to dump the puck in, so, that means we’re doing a good job in the neutral zone.”

“We did some video yesterday that areas we can clean up,” said Lowry. “I think we know 5-on-5, that’s kinda been our bread and butter. We’re an elite defensive team and we gave up a lot of odd man rushes, uncharacteristic plays that we can’t afford to give up later on in the season. So, some different adjustments like that, I think was huge. A great kill for us at the end of the game. That’s the difference tonight.”

Laurent Brossoit stopped all 17 shots he faced for his first shutout of the season and his first in over two years for the fourth of his career.

“It doesn’t feel any different when he’s in there,” Morrissey said. “But when LB goes in there he’s been amazing. He’s been amazing all year.”

Scheifele was hit in the head with a skate while diving back to try and stop a breakaway in the third period. He returned to the bench with two minutes left in the game and had one last shift. It was originally feared he was cut by a skate, but that wasn’t the case.

“He just got banged in the head so he had to have concussion protocol,” said Bowness.

Both the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars also won on Friday, leaving the Jets and Avs both two points back of the Stars for the division lead. But the Jets have three games in hand on both teams.

Neither side was able to generate much in a first period filled with stoppages as Winnipeg carried a 9-8 edge in shots on goal into the second period.

The shot clock remained unchanged for the first 6:45 of the second as both teams struggled to hit the net.

Eventually, Winnipeg managed to steer nine shots to Seattle’s four in the second period but the game remained deadlocked at zero heading to the third.

Jets fans who didn’t drift off during a sleepy first forty minutes were finally rewarded at the 7:15 mark of the third. After Morrissey made a great play at the point to keep the puck in, Vladislav Namestnikov fed Scheifele down low and he walked in front of the net before sliding it through the legs of Joey Daccord to open the scoring.

A little over a minute later, Seattle got their best chance of the night when Andre Burakovsky was sprung on a breakaway. As he shot the puck, his stick broke and Scheifele tripped him, sending the Seattle forward careening into Brossoit in net and putting the Kraken on the power play.

Scheifele was hurt on the play, sending him to the locker room for repairs but he did return before the end of the game. His teammates killed off his minor tripping penalty which turned out to be the only penalty of the night.

The Jets doubled their lead at the 11:28 mark when Lowry banged home a rebound for his 10th of the season and second in as many games after going 21 straight without a goal.

The Kraken mustered very little in terms of a comeback charge before Ehlers scored into an empty net with 50 seconds left.

The Jets will be right back in action Saturday night in Vancouver, trying to improve to 7-0 on the second leg of back-to-backs this season.

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