WINNIPEG – A red hot goaltender halted the Winnipeg Jets winning streak at eight games with Samuel Ersson stopping 35 shots to beat the Jets 2-0. It’s the second time this season, the Jets Even with the loss, the Jets pushed their run of allowing three goals or fewer to 32 games. Connor Hellebuyck made 34 saves for Winnipeg who will close out their four game homestand Tuesday against the New York Islanders.
NO SCHEIFELE
For the first time this season the Jets played without Mark Scheifele who missed the night with a lower body injury. Adam Lowry moved into the number one centre role between Nikolaj Ehlers and Gabe Vilardi. The Jets generated plenty of chances with Vilardi getting robbed three times by Ersson, twice in the first and once in the second. The Jets top line had five total high danger scoring chances and only gave up one.
“Yeah, great to play with. He does everything well out there. A great playmaker, an underrated playmaker,” said Vilardi when asked about Lowry.
“But he's very smart, he's very sound defensively, offensively. You know where he's going to be. Just a solid all-around player as you guys already know.”
OPPORTUNISTIC FLYERS
The Flyers took advantage of a Winnipeg defensive zone turnover. Cam Atkinson redirected a shot just underneath Connor Hellebuyck to make it 1-0. Philadelphia is 16-3-2 when scoring first this season. Then on their first power play pf the night, Atkinson converted on a rebound for his second of the night to make it 2-0. Rick Bowness didn’t like his teams puck management in the middle frame, he felt most of the Flyers chances came from off the rush because of that.
KUPARI RETURN
Rasmus Kupari returned to the lineup after missing 25 games with a shoulder injury and took Lowry’s spot between Mason Appleton and Nine Niederreiter to start the game. Bowness made a change later in the game putting Dominic Toninato in between Appleton and Niederreiter trying to find a spark. As for Kupari, he played just over 11 minutes.
“That’s a tough team to come back from. You’re rusty to begin with. That’s why we sent him down, to get him three games at least,” said Bowness of Kupari.
“He had two really good shifts at the end.”
