Jets shut out Stars, 3-0 Brossoit makes 24 saves

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In Dallas, the visiting Winnipeg Jets’ Laurent Brossoit made 24 saves in a 3-0 shut out of the Stars on Thursday night.  and

The Jets hold second in the Central Division, they own the spot, for now, on a tie breaker with the Colorado Avalanche.

“We know that they’re dangerous off the rush, and it seems like we took that away for the most part,” Brossoit said. “In the [defensive zone] we didn’t give them much, and any rebounds I gave up, our guys were first to the puck. It was consistent the whole 60 (minutes).”

The Jets improved to 49-24-6 off their fifth straight win, erasing most of the stink form a six-game skid prior to the streak.

“That’s the game we want to play,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “That team’s a great hockey team over there, obviously. We knew we had to bring our A-game out there on every shift and we did. That’s the way we want to play and we’re going to.”

The Jets took a 109 lead in the opening stanza on a strike by Nikolaj Ehlers  at 14:51, scoring off a rebound.

“I think the pressure game we got back to, getting pucks deep, all the old hockey cliches,” Ehlers said. “Getting the pucks deep and working on their [defense] and creating turnovers, getting some [offensive zone] time from that was something that we, earlier in this season, were really good at. Today, we got back to that. We played it simple most of the time, but there’s still some things that we need to clean up.”

The Stars dropped to 50-21-9.

“We can always keep getting better,” Dallas’ Jamie Benn said. “I think that’s the best thing about hockey. As good as you are, there’s always things you can improve on. We’ll learn from this one. Take some positives from it if we can and learn from our mistakes. We would have liked to [clinch the division] tonight. Didn’t happen, so we’ve got a big game Saturday now.”

David Gustafsson pushed the advantage to 2-0 midway through the middle frame. scoring off as deflection.

“I think against that team, you want to play out front. You want to get the first goal and then they have to open it up a little bit,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “Credit to them, they defended hard. They were the more desperate team. We didn’t give them a whole lot either, but you have to score in this league to win, and it’s one of the few nights we didn’t do enough to score.”

Mark Scheifele hit an empty net at 17:39 of the third for the 3-1 final count on the scoreboard.

Jake Oettinger made 21 saves in the loss.

“I recognize a lot of the system, for sure. (A) disciplined team,” the Stars’ Tyler Seguin said. “Their [third forward in the defensive zone] was always above, their [defense] played well, they’re in your face. We know the style. Couldn’t crack it tonight. A team like that, when they score first or two, they really get into that system. If we get up on them, they can’t really play it. If we see them again, that’ll be the message.”