In Vancouver, the Canucks won their third straight game on Friday night, 4-3, over the Winnipeg Jets.
Vancouver has won all three games since the team fired their bench boss and general manager and hired Bruce Boudreau as head coach.
Nils Hoglander struck for a pair of goals in the first period for the Canucks.
Thatcher Demko made 34 saves in the Vancouver win.
“It’s big to get momentum when a new coach comes in,” Demko said. “I’ve never been through it, but I can imagine it would be tough if a new coach came in and you lost the first handful of games. So just to get these three wins is big.”
Blake Wheeler and Kyle Connor scored for the Jets.
Wheeler was injured in the game and left with an apparent knee injury.
“It’s going to be a while,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said. “We’ll get him looked at tomorrow. I’m not a doctor, but it’s going to be a while.”
The Canucks improved to 11-15-2.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, we all know that,” Demko said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to make up.”
Elias Pettersson was the striker in the skills competition and was credited with the deciding goal in the win.
The Jets dropped to 13-9-5.
Conor Garland scored for Vancouver in the middle frame.
Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele knotted the game, 3-3, just past the midway point of the second period.
“It might be as fine a game as I’ve seen that line play (Connor, Wheeler and Scheifele),” Maurice said. “They’ve had big nights before, but they looked like they could just do it on every shift, and against good players. That was as good as I’ve seen them play, and they’ve been building to that. We’ll get [Wheeler] healed up, we’ll find other players and we’ll find a way to do it without him.”
Eric Comrie made 33 saves in the Jets loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.