WINNIPEG – The Jets continue to ride the great goaltending of Ondrej Pavelec who was on fire again, posting his 6th straight win helping his Jets to a huge 5-2 win over one of the top teams in the NHL the Montreal Canadiens. Pavelec stopped 20 shots in the first period alone as the Jets were badly outplayed but weathered the storm. In the end, Pavelec stopped 39 out of 41 Montreal shots to post his 19th victory of the season. He was also named the game’s first star.
“We survived tonight,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “You’re going to have to try to do that at this time of year.”
Dustin Tokarski started for the Canadiens as Carey Price got a rare night off. Tokarski gave up five goals on just 22 shots.
“He (Pavelec) was outstanding,” Canadiens coach Michel Therrien said. “He was the difference in the game.”
Winnipeg welcomed back a familiar face as Dustin Byfuglien returned to the lineup after missing eight games with an upper body injury. They wanted to ease the big man back into the lineup and he played 18 minutes and opened the scoring with a cannon from the point. It was his 16th of the season.
Other Jets to find the back of the net were Mark Scheifele who scored a beauty after some great work by Tyler Myers to set him up for his 14th , Jim Slater got his 3rd, Blake Wheeler his 24th , Adam Lowry his 10th.
Montreal got goals from Andrei Markov his ninth and Brendan Gallagher his 23rd.
“I thought we were really solid,” Therrien said. “We were ready to play. We dictated the game. We dictated the pace. Pavelec was outstanding, and they capitalized on their chances. Honestly, I’ve got to look at the way we played, and we played a really solid game.”
The Jets were outshot but didn’t play that bad as they were using their speed to break down the Montreal defenders who seemed leery every time the puck was dumped in as the Jets were like trains coming down. Captain Andrew Ladd turned the tide of this game early in the first as he threw a couple solid hits and got the crowd buzzing.
“I think we knew that we weren’t really good in the first period, but we also thought we could get better,” Maurice said. “There were some things we could do just to simplify. Sometimes you just got to accept where you’re at and not look for perfect and find a way just to get a little bit better. I thought we did a good job of that.”
Jim Slater got the rare Gordie Howe Hat Trick as he had a goal, assist and dropped the mitts for the Hatty!
A chorus of chants broke out at MTS Centre OLE OLE OLE OLE! the famous Montreal chant and the crowd was also chanting We Want Carey! The Jets got good support from their fans.
“Of course it wasn’t the first period that we wanted, but we survived,” Pavelec said. “We scored the first goal. That was huge for us, and every period we got better and better. We found a way to beat one of the best teams in the [League] right now, so we should be feel pretty good about ourselves.”
Jets remain in the playoffs as of now as they sit with 90 points and hold onto the final Wild Card spot.
They will have a couple days off now to regroup and get ready for a big game with Chicago on Sunday.
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