WINNIPEG – Michal Neuvirth got his league-leading third shutout Saturday night, stopping 28 Winnipeg Jets shots and helping his Flyers get a tough road win. The Jets were coming off a long road trip and looked a bit sloppy but still had enough chances to win but Neuvirth made some key stops at the right time.
Michal Neuvirth stopped for shutout in Winnipeg – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“It has been a long [trip],” Neuvirth said. “I thought that we were getting better each game. I thought it was a great team effort. The guys did a good job for all 60 minutes, and that’s the way we have to play on the road.”
Winnipeg outplayed Philly but made some costly turnovers that proved to be the difference. Special teams was also a factor as the Flyers were 2-5 on the power play and the Jets were 0-5 with the man advantage and couldn’t generate much at all.
Flyers got goals from Brayden Schenn who scored his fifth on the power play off a nice dish Claude Giroux. Wayne Simmonds got his second on the power play off another nice dish from Giroux. Matt Read got his third an empty netter.
“We were getting good movement (on the power play in previous games),” Simmonds said. “We were trying to not get discouraged. It came together [Saturday]. I thought we had even better movement than in the past. We were getting shots through. We were getting shots from all angles.”
This was a physical affair with a lot of big hits by two big fast teams . Andrew Ladd took exception to Blake Wheeler being hit by RJ Umberger and dropped the gloves to stick up for his line mate and give Umberger a little lesson on fighting.
“It’s hard to tell how hot [Neuvirth] was,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “We just didn’t execute offensively.
“What we did with the puck, we just weren’t really sharp with it. We had a hard time handling it, getting it off. We put a lot [of shots] into his glove early. We just couldn’t get a lot of pucks to the net.”
The Jets had their best chances off the stick of Nik Ehlers who had some glorious chances including one point blank shot where he was robbed by the fast glove hand of Neuvirth.
Patrice Cormier who was recalled from the Manitoba Moose saw his first game action with the Jets this season as did Paul Postma who was replacing Ben Chiarot on the blue line. Cormier was in as Nic Petan was battling the flu bug.
Ondrej Pavelec stopped 20 of 22 shots and falls to 4-4-1 on the season.
The Jets will head on the road for the next two weeks and face some Central Division rivals and look to gain some more ground early on and solidify their top 8 spot in the standings.
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