Scheifele happy with 11-game point streak, but striving for more

WINNIPEG - Mark Scheifele is currently riding a career-high 11-game point streak, thanks to two points in a 6-3 Winnipeg Jets victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
He has a six-game goal scoring streak, giving him 11 on the season - tied for the fifth most in the National Hockey League.
On top of that, the 18 points Scheifele has over the course of his 11-game streak gives him a total of 28 points this season, putting him sixth in the NHL.
However, the 27-year-old is nowhere near satisfied.

Especially not when he sees what Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews have been doing this season.
"It definitely pushes you to do more," Scheifele said Friday as the Jets held an optional practice. "I've learned a lot for myself from watching those guys play. I know definitely from watching Connor and Auston play, you pick up little subtleties in the plays they're making, the little passes they're making, the way Auston is shooting the puck - all those little things."
That's why there is never a specific thing that Winnipeg's leading point producer is working on.
It's never just shooting, just passing, or just defensive zone play.
The game follows him home, even after a successful night that saw him win 57 per cent of his face-offs and lead all Jets forwards in ice time at 19:32.
"That's every day. That's from last night to falling asleep thinking about a certain play or something that I can work on or something that I can create some thought processes behind it to figure out," said Scheifele. "That's part of hockey that I love. There's always things to work on."
The Jets have a lot of players with a similar mindset, and Scheifele has two of them on his line with Blake Wheeler and Pierre-Luc Dubois.
The trio has combined for 16 points in Winnipeg's last two outings.
"Dubie has been fitting in great there. He's a guy that I love to talk the game with. I love to figure out things. That's the fun part about hockey is that growth," said Scheifele. "A big part of his game is being able to protect the puck. Knowing how to use his body in those situations. For guys like me and Blake, we thrive off that.
"We just have to continue to grow. I think that's the biggest thing. You have two good games, you can't just sit back and rest on that."
Jets head coach Paul Maurice doesn't think that will be a problem. In fact, as much as the offensive side of Scheifele's game is getting praised these days, Maurice sees the biggest improvement at the opposite end of the rink.
"Being involved in the defensive zone, being part of that defensive solution so that we can move together as five, that's the area I think is better right now in his game than any point last year," said Maurice. "Especially early when we were trying to establish, and we know we have to become a better defensive team - we finished 10th last year - but that was the focus of our group.
"I thought that was the area he showed leadership in."
Following Winnipeg's win over Vancouver, which closed out a road trip that saw the Jets win three of four games, Wheeler praised Scheifele's ability to win puck battles and keep offensive zone pressure up.

Scheifele's 20 takeaways are the most on the Jets, and are tied for the most in the NHL (with three other players - Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, and Nils Hoglander).
"I know growing up, you watched Pavel Datsyuk. He was always the guy that led that stat," said Scheifele. "It's just having a good stick and being in the right spots. That's the biggest thing, going to the right areas to be able to take it away, making good reads, that's when those happen."
And what happens after that is usually a positive for the Jets.

One particular takeaway in Vancouver led to Dubois' first goal as a member of the Jets. Whether that work gets done in the offensive zone, or the defensive zone - like the turnover he forced that led to the tying goal in the same game - it's all connected.
"You play good D, you have a good stick, you're in the right spots, you're making the right reads, good things can happen," Scheifele said. "When you play with guys like Wheels and Dubie, when you capitalize on those chances, when you have a good stick, when you turn a puck over, when you make a good read in the D-zone, it's going to create three-on-twos, two-on-ones, offensive zone time.
"You get to play with guys like that, we're going to try and capitalize."
They've been capitalizing, that's for sure.
It's resulted in the longest point streak of Scheifele's career, but he isn't done yet.
"You don't go into a game expecting it to happen, but when you do the right things over and over, the players I'm playing with make it pretty easy on me," Scheifele said. "That's the fun part about it. I get to play with two fantastic players that make great passes, make good reads all over the ice. I'm definitely very lucky to play with them."
OPTIONAL SKATE
Friday's practice was optional for the Jets with a number of players staying off the ice.
That list included Scheifele, Wheeler, Dubois, Nikolaj Ehlers, Nate Thompson, Andrew Copp, Paul Stastny, and Mathieu Perreault.
Still, there were 17 skaters who did take part, including defenceman Tucker Poolman.
Poolman's upper-body injury kept him out of Thursday's win over Montreal. Maurice didn't want to commit the defenceman to Saturday's rematch, either.
"Possible for tomorrow. We will see how he comes back and make a decision then," said Maurice. "I'm not ruling him out just yet but I don't have a big push to put him back in unless we're real confident where he is at."