Three things - Hellebuyck puts on a show in St. Paul

The Winnipeg Jets leaned heavily on the defending Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck on Monday night in a 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center. Hellebuyck was outstanding through the first 35 minutes of the game and ended up making a season high 43 saves for his 15^th win in 17 starts. He tied the NHL mark for fewest games to 15 wins in a season. Only three other goaltenders have posted 15 wins in 17 games: Evgeni Nabokov (w/ SJS in 2008-09), Brent Johnson (w/ STL in 2001-02) and Tiny Thompson (w/ BOS in 1929-30). Alex Iafallo scored twice, Nino Niederreiter and Adam Lowry added singles for Winnipeg who beat Minnesota for a seventh straight time, which is their second-longest active streak against a single opponent behind the Ducks (8-0-0). Neal Pionk had a multi-point night, the Jets now head to the Pacific time zone and will face the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night.

FOURTH LINE AND HELLEBUYCK

The Jets fourth line of Rasmus Kupari, Alex Iafallo and Morgan Barron have played well as of late. Monday night, they were rewarded for their efforts. Jake Middleton opened the scoring for the Wild at 8:37 of the first period but it wasn’t long after that Iafallo evened the score. Kupari made a tremendous play to set up his winger and the New York product did the rest beating Filip Gustavsson for his third of the year. After that tying goal, Hellebuyck made three stellar saves on a Wild power play and was busy throughout the opening frame with 21 stops. The Jets struggled in the opening 20 minutes with Minnesota’s speed and pressure.

“Ras and Bear did a great job getting there and getting it deep. So, it's a nice play. I just had to shoot it,” said Iafallo.

“So, we're gonna keep doing that and keep being in the right spot. Got to help out Bucky some pretty, pretty big saves out there. So, we'll work on that for sure.”

RESPONSE IN THE SECOND

Hellebuyck held the fort for the first half of the second period with the Wild continuing to press. The Jets goaltender came up huge during a Minnesota power play with Haydn Fleury in the penalty box as the Wild would generate five shots. About two minutes after they killed that off, the Jets would take their first lead of the night. Jake Middleton was sent in alone and was stopped not once but twice by Hellebuyck, Winnipeg would race back the other way with Neal Pionk spotting Nino Niederreiter all alone in front of Gustavsson and the Swiss forward backhanded in his ninth of the season.

HELLEBUYCK AND THE POWER PLAY FOR THE WIN

Minnesota came close to tying the game when Kirill Kaprizov sent a perfect pass to Matt Boldy at the side of the net and Hellebuyck made a shoulder save to keep the one goal Jets lead. Then at 13:18, the Jets would score on the power play with Pionk walking in from the point and his shot was redirected by Iafallo past Gustavsson giving Winnipeg some breathing room at 3-1. For Iafallo, it was his 100^th career goal.

“That's a great shot from up top, because we're just talking about getting pucks to net on power play right there, especially at the end,” said Iafallo.

“We need a goal to keep the momentum going. So, Neil had a great, good break in from the start there. And Neil just had a great shot.”