In Chicago, David Rittich made 22 saves, and the Winnipeg Jets rolled to their fourth straight win, 3-1, over the Blackhawks on Friday night.
“We’ve been good on the road. Tough one last night, and then to come in here, you knew that they were going to jump on us,” Winnipeg associate coach Scott Arniel said. “But we really liked our first period, been preaching all year, no excuses. Just put the work in and the results will come.”
The Jets improved to 18-7-1.
Winnipeg started early with a strike by Cole Perfetti in the 16th minute of the opening period for a 1-0 advantage.
Blake Wheeler pushed the lead to 2-0 in the middle frame, his goal came with just 56 seconds of fresh ice used in the period.
Chicago’s lone striker, Taylor Raddysh, scored just past the midway point of the second period for a 2-1 count headed to the third period.
The goal was a tip-in on a shot from Philipp Kurashev on the point.
“Kurashev and Raddysh have had a good working relationship, whether it’s [Jonathan] Toews or [Max] Domi, or whoever’s at center,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “So they seem to have a little bit of chemistry and find each other. Raddysh, to his credit, has really played hard this year. He’s been harder on his stick as of late. He’s getting rewarded. I think that’s got to be infectious on our whole team. We’ve got to see that and start to duplicate that.”
The Hawks are 1-10-1 in their last 12 games.
Adam Lowry sealed the win for the Jets when he scored at 12:25 for the 3-1 final.
“It’s good,” Lowry said. “You come into a back to back, you’re not sure how the legs are going to be. I think getting in early last night helped. Travel wasn’t too bad. I felt like we had a pretty good first period again, similar to St. Louis. [Rittich] made some big saves. That was a big power-play goal to start the second.”
The Blackhawks dropped to 7-15-4.
“Probably somewhere in the second period, I thought we started to control some pucks in the O-zone a little bit, not enough pucks at the net, but at least we had some control and puck possession,” Richardson said. “Definitely the first period was not what we talked about for a couple days here. We wanted to get out fast on a team that played [Thursday] night.
“Make it difficult for guys like Morrissey, and we didn’t touch anybody all night until maybe a little bit in the second period and the third period with some desperation. When you’re playing from behind, it’s definitely taxing, and we’ve done it way too much of late.”
Arvid Soderblom made 29 saves in the Chicago loss.
“He’s working his [butt] off in there and backdoor saves left and right,” Chicago defenseman Seth Jones said of Soderblom. “We’re obviously giving up too many chances. Your goalie’s got to make timely saves for you, but we’ve got to do a little bit better job.
“He’s part of this team, and he’s a guy that’s never going to complain or show his emotion. He’s a pretty low-key guy, you’re not going to get a lot out of him, but that’s what is good about him. He’s even-keeled to the good and the bad. We always give him pats on the back and things like that when necessary.”
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