Mark Scheifele has made no secret after being left off the Four Nations Faceoff roster, he wants to prove he belongs on Canada’s Olympic team.
He continued to make a strong case for himself in Philadelphia Thursday night, scoring twice in a 5-2 win, the third victory in a row for the Winnipeg Jets.
Scheifele scored his fourth and fifth goals to give him a point in all four games as the Jets played arguably their best contest of the young campaign.
“It was a tight-checking game,” said Scheifele. “Not a lot of space on the inside and Bucky (Connor Hellebuyck) made a lot of great saves and obviously a big win.
“I thought we were a little more spot on (defensively) for the most part. Obviously, still some areas to fix, but that was a lot better for sure.”
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The Jets had lost 10 of their last 12 games in Philly.
Connor had a pair of assists in the victory and Morgan Barron continued his red-hot start with his third goal of the season to give him a four-game point streak.
The Jets scored five times on only 15 shots. They allowed only three shots in the first period and just two shots in the final frame.
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“Way better,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “I thought the first period was our best period of the year. Just the puck pressure, the re-loads, the communication, not spending a lot of time in our own end. A little bit sloppy, a little bit loose in the second, but still, I thought that (we) got back to it in the third. But that was a lot closer to what we need to do.”
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Scheifele’s second goal of the night was his 812th career point to tie Blake Wheeler for the most points in franchise history.
“Very cool,” said Scheifele. “Wheels is the guy that taught me so much, so to obviously be tied with him is a huge honour.
“It’s obviously very humbling. Not long ago, I was just starting in the league, so it’s obviously very humbling and just want to keep getting better.”
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Haydn Fleury and Cole Koepke were both in the lineup for Winnipeg after leaving games on the weekend with injuries. Parker Ford made his season debut on the fourth line as he replaced Nikita Chibrikov in the lineup.
The Jets got on the board first thanks to their third line. It started when Vlad Namestnikov made a strong play at the blue line to prevent the Flyers from clearing the puck. The puck found its way to Gustav Nyquist near the point, and he carried it along the wall deeper into the Flyers’ end. He passed it down low to Nino Niederreiter, who drove to the net and was denied in close but Namestnikov banged home a rebound for his first of the year at the 5:45 mark of the first.
Other than the goal, not a whole lot happened in the period. Winnipeg only managed to get five shots on goal but held the Flyers to three, with the teams combining for just three shots on net in the final 14 minutes of the period.
The Jets expanded their lead at the 7:01 mark of the second. The Flyers were in control of the puck as Travis Sanheim sent a pass to Nikita Grebenkin as they tried to move it out of their own end but Grebenkin couldn’t handle the pass. It landed on the stick of Gabriel Vilardi, who sent it across to Scheifele. Scheifele then ripped a hard wrister that beat Sam Errson to make it 2-0.
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Philadelphia pushed hard to get back in the game, controlling much of the play in the period thanks in part to a pair of power plays.
While the Flyers didn’t score with the man advantage, they were able to capitalize on a bad pinch by Neal Pionk that led to their first goal of the game.
The pinch led to a 2-on-1 with Owen Tippett carrying the puck up the ice, trying to race away from the backcheck of Jonathan Toews. But Toews couldn’t catch Tippett before the young Flyer whipped a shot bar-down on Connor Hellebuyck to make it 2-1 at the 16:22 mark.
But just over a minute later, Winnipeg answered right back. The top line put in a good shift in the offensive end, handing off to the fourth line. Connor passed it cross-ice to Barron, whose attempt on goal bounced off two different Flyers defenders before skittering across the goal line for his third goal of the season.
Winnipeg was outshot 12-5 in the middle frame but put the clamps on the Flyers in the third, not allowing a shot on goal until late in the period.
The Jets stretched their lead to 4-1 when Scheifele one-timed his second of the night off a great feed from Connor on the power play at the 9:40 mark.
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Philadelphia pulled the goalie with around 2:30 left, and with 2:21 to go, Matvei Michkov beat Hellebuyck with a good shot from distance on the Flyers’ first shot of the period.
The Flyers managed to get one more shot on goal in the period before Tanner Pearson iced the game into an empty net.
Hellebuyck only had to make 15 saves to earn his first career win in Philadelphia.
The Jets will look to make it four wins in a row when they host Nashville on Saturday night.
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