Three things - Jets dominate Bruins

WINNIPEG - The Winnipeg Jets closed out their pre-Christmas schedule with a 5-1 result with the visiting Boston Bruins Friday night. Nino Niederreiter with two, Josh Morrissey, Gabriel Vilardi, and Adam Lowry scored for the Jets and Connor Hellebuyck made 24 saves for his 16^th win of the season. Winnipeg ended a six-game losing streak to the Bruins and once again moved into first place in the Central.

TOP LINE CONTINUES TO ROLL

Gabriel Vilardi scored in his fifth straight game, which is a career best. Vilardi added an assist, Mark Scheifele recorded two assists and Nikolaj Ehlers chipped in with a helper as well. The Jets top line has been unstoppable for five games now and outproduced the Bruins top line of Pavel Zacha, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak.

NOT TO BE DENIED

It looked like Josh Morrissey opened the scoring early in the first period, but the goal was immediately waved off because it was ruled the Jets defenceman had kicked the puck in. Replay confirmed the ruling on the ice and the game remained scoreless. But with less than a minute left in the opening frame, Morrissey jumped up and grabbed a Gabriel Vilardi rebound and slid the puck under Jeremy Swayman to give the Jets a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes. Morrissey had another huge night at both ends of the ice.

POWER PLAY GETS TWO

The Jets didn’t get to put their power play to work on Wednesday against Detroit. With five seconds left in their second man advantage in the second period, Nate Schmidt found a wide open Neiderreiter off to the side of Swayman and the Swiss forward went skate to stick and a 3-0 lead for the Jets. Niederreiter added another power play goal with 19 seconds left in the game, the Jets finished two-for-three with the man advantage. It was the first time since November 14 that Winnipeg scored multiple goals on the power play.