Three things - Rare off night defensively for Jets

The Winnipeg Jets did not hit the 100-point mark for the third time in franchise history after losing to the Vancouver Canucks 6-2 at Rogers Arena. Nikolaj Ehlers and Alex Iafallo scored for the Jets who saw their record drop to 47-18-4 and thanks to Washington’s win over Detroit, are tied with the Caps with 98 points atop the NHL standings. Connor Hellebuyck took the loss (39-10-3), Winnipeg will close out this road trip Thursday in Edmonton.

STRANGE NIGHT

The Jets came into the night as the best defensive team in the league facing a Canucks team that had scored only one goal in their last game, a 3-1 loss to Utah. In fact, the Canucks scoring woes were well documented having scored three goals or less in 29 of their last 32 games. Vancouver played some desperate hockey scoring three times in the opening period, Drew O’Connor opened the scoring at 4:55 before Nikolaj Ehlers tied it with his 22^nd. The Canucks then got goals from Brock Boeser and Nils Hoglander 1:28 apart to lead by two after one.

TURNING POINT

Winnipeg cut the Canucks lead down to one goal in the second thanks to Alex Iafallo slamming in a rebound for his 11^th of the season. The Jets then had two glorious chances to tie it, Mark Scheifele was robbed by the right pad of Kevin Lankinen and Ehlers made a glorious move to the inside off the rush and rang his shot off the bar. Vancouver took advantage of the break, with Boeser and Pius Suter scoring 46 seconds apart to give the Canucks a 5-2 lead after two periods.

HELLEBUYCK MISSES OUT ON 40^TH WIN

Connor Hellebuyck’s record against the Western Conference this season was 22-4-2, with a .938 save percentage and 1.66 goals against average with six shutouts. Hellebuyck (39-9-3) didn’t get a lot of help from his teammates allowing five goals for just the third time this season and he missed out on becoming the second American born goaltender to have two 40-win seasons on his resume, Ryan Miller is the only American born goaltender to do so.