Three things - Scheifele hat trick in Jets win

Mark Scheifele scored his eighth career hat trick as the Winnipeg Jets beat the New York Rangers 4-2 at Madison Square Garden tonight. Kyle Connor scored the other goal for the Jets (44-19-5) who remain in first place in the Central Division with 93 points. Connor Hellebuyck made 40 saves with 15 of them coming in the third period. The Jets will practice Wednesday and then take on the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.

SCHEIF LINE HUGE IN SECOND

In the last two Jets wins it was the line of Sean Monahan, Tyler Toffoli and Nikolaj Ehlers delivering the offence. Tonight, it was Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Alex Iafallo stepping up in a huge second period. Scheifele would open the scoring at 4:04 of the middle frame when he jumped on a loose puck and shovelled in his 20^th of the season (the ninth consecutive season he has reached 20 goals, a Thrashers/Jets franchise record). Then with the game tied at one, Connor restored the one goal lead on the power play at 12:18, marking his 30^th of the season, the sixth time he has reached 30. With just over three minutes left, Scheifele would steal the puck at the Jets blueline and go in untouched on a breakaway to beat Igor Shesterkin for his second of the night to make it 3-1.

HUGE PERFORMANCE FROM HELLEBUYCK

The Jets goaltender has had some remarkable performances at Madison Square Garden over his career and he saved his best for the third period tonight. The Rangers made a big push in the final frame outshooting the Jets 16-7 but could only beat Hellebuyck once. Hellebuyck (50 GP) earned his 32nd victory of 2023-24, marking the most wins by a Jets/Thrashers goaltender through 50 games in a season. Hellebuyck previously held the benchmark as well (31 in 2017-18).

STRONG ROAD GAME

The Rangers had the second most wins on home ice in the NHL coming into tonight’s game at 24-8-0 and had won three straight at MSG. They shut down the Rangers at five-on-five with New York scoring their goals on the power play and at 6-on-5. Per Natural Stat Trick, Winnipeg had eight high danger scoring chances as opposed to the Rangers three.  

“Obviously anytime you go up against one of the best it's, you want to see where you where you fit in. Obviously, we like some parts of our game and didn't like some parts of our game, but you know, it's a great team over there,” said Scheifele.

“A lot of good players and you know, they started to push towards the end and, and made us work for it.”