Jets extend Detroit woes in 5-2 win Vilardi leads Jets with goal and three points

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In Winnipeg, the3 Jets stretched their hot streak to nine games on Wednesday night in a 5-2 win over the visiting Detroit Red Wings.

Winnipeg improved to 19-9-3 off a 7-1-1 streak.

Laurent Brossoit made 26 saves in the win.

Gabriel Vilardi  hit for a goal in his fourth straight game, and added two assists in the win.

“You watch him every game, his confidence is growing,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “He’s so good around the net because he hangs on to it. He’s so big and strong, [he’s] got great vision and has patience with the puck of when to pass it and when not to pass it and hang on to it. He’s been very, very impressive for us.”

The Jets took a 1-0 lead on a marker from Neal Pionk at 15:38  of the opening stanza.

Detroit’s Olli Maatta tied the game, 1-1, at 1:44 of the middle frame.

“It’s just complete hockey. It’s everyone,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said. “There’s those small lapses. There’s some team lapses and there’s some individual lapses and they’re finding us and it’s making it hard on our game.”

The Red Wings dropped to to 15-13-4 off their fourth straight loss.

“It’s [the losses] spiralling right now,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said. “It’s a lot of hockey, but we don’t make excuses. We had to come into here and find a way, and we didn’t. We found the opposite way. We lost our [defensive]-zone coverage. We’ve been struggling with that as of late. They exposed us tonight, and we hung Reimer out to dry with backdoors and extended [offensive]-zone shifts for Winnipeg. We’ve really tried it all the last couple of weeks — different line combinations, different coaching coming in hard trying to pump us up, or whatever it is. But it’s got to come from within the room and every guy’s got to be better”

The Jets reclaimed the lead, 2-1, at 7-41 of the second on a strike by Nikolaj Ehlers off a feed by Vilardi.

“Unbelievable smart player,” Ehlers said of Vilardi, who had missed 18 games with a knee injury. “To be able to come back after an injury like he had that early in the season and play the way he’s playing right now is, you know I’ve been through it. It’s hard, but it’s really impressive and the work he does in the [offensive] zone behind their net, in the corners with his stick, his stick-handling is unbelievable. And obviously those passes that he makes, you know we just have to put it into the empty net pretty much. Makes our job a little easier but us as a line we feel good, we read off each other really well, and that’s exciting for us.”

Winnipeg kept the pressure on and added two more goals for a 4-1 advantage.

Dylan Samberg’s stretch pass off the sideboards sent Axel Jonsson-Fjallby  scored off a breakaway midway through the second period for a 3-1 lead.

“I think we are all on the same page,” Jonsson-Fjallby said of his line wirh Morgan Barron and David Gustafsson. “We skate a lot, go north, keep it simple. Defense first … We, as a line, have gotten better and better all year. It’s nice that it finally paid off.”

Vilardi potted his goal at 16:10 to stretch the lead to 4-1.

“We’re scoring goals, but we also want to be better — I want to be better,” Ehlers said. “But those two guys [linemates Vilardi and Mark Scheifele] are pretty fun to play with. They read the game really well. We had a ton of chances. We’ve got even better.”

Patrick Kane scored at 8:41 of the third to trim the deficit to  4-2, he scored off a rebound.

“I feel like we really tried,” Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider said. “It just feels like we were always a step too late or not really connected on the things that we tried to get done, like the forecheck or the breakouts. One split second, we were kind of off, then we were chasing the game. I think we just lost the battles today. You look at the scoreboard and finding yourself down a couple, then obviously it’s self-chasing.”

Mark Scheifele closed the book on the scoresheet at 15:12 of the third for the 5-2 final count.

“It was just an all-around really solid team effort,” Bowness said. “Our team game has been really good. And you don’t have a team game unless you have everyone contributing and looking the same out there without the puck.”

James Reimer made 36 saves in the loss.