In Winnipeg,Marc-Andre Fleury made 31 saves in a 3-1 win for the Chicago Blackhawks over the Jets on Monday night.
“This is what [Fleury] does, he keeps you involved in the game, he keeps you in the game,” Blackhawks head coach Derek King said. “He gives you an opportunity to win a hockey game, and we happened to put a good, solid effort in front of him, and this is the outcome.”
The question is whether or not Fleury will be making those saves for Chicago or another club at trade deadline.
Patrick Kane scored for the Hawks, and Alex DeBrincat snapped a 1-1 tie in the third period.
“Getting four out of six points on the road is not bad,” DeBrincat said. “Going home I think we can capitalize on the (six-game) homestand and hopefully get a lot more wins.”
Chicago moved to 18-24-7.
Mark Scheifele was the lone striker for the Jets.
“We generated some opportunities, but we didn’t have anybody in [Fleury’s] eyes,” Jets coach Dave Lowry said. “We did a really good job in the third. In the third period, we got on the body, we got traffic and we got some opportunities.”
Winnipeg fell to 20-18-8.
“I thought [Fleury] made a couple of big saves, especially in the third period, but I think that we as a team needed to do a better job of getting to him,” the Jets’ Nate Schmidt said. “Our ‘D,’ we shot pucks, but we didn’t really have the guys in front and we’re just making easy saves for him. When he gets into a groove, he’s a guy that can really steal the flow of the game.”
Brandon Hagel hit for an empty-net goal to ice the win for the Blackhawks.
“It’s funny, we said it after (the game), you compete, you play with a little structure and you execute,” King said. “That was a solid road win for us. The guys rebounded and played great.”
Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves in the Jets loss.
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