Three things - Jets play complete game in win over Wild

WINNIPEG – Cole Perfetti recorded three points and Connor Hellebuyck made 19 saves for his 41^st career shutout to lead the Winnipeg Jets past the Minnesota Wild 5-0 on Saturday at Canada Life Centre. Hellebuyck passed John Vanbiesbrouck and Frank Brimsek (both w/ 40) for the fourth most shutouts by an American goaltender in NHL history. On top of Perfetti, Nikolaj Ehlers, Morgan Barron, Neal Pionk and Vladislav Namestnikov scored for Winnipeg who are now five points up on the Wild for first place in the Central Division. The Jets went 2-for-5 on the power play and the Wild went 0-for-4. The Jets will close out their pre-holiday schedule Monday afternoon in Toronto against the Maple Leafs.

TAKE ADVANTAGE

The Jets wanted to take advantage of a Wild team that had played last night at home against Utah HC. A bunch of Minnesota’s top players logged a lot of ice time Friday night as Kirill Kaprizov (26:37), Marco Rossi (24:15) and Mats Zuccarello (24:13) all played over 24 minutes. Winnipeg got on the board first and the goal came courtesy of the power play with Nikolaj Ehlers scoring at 6:51.

Winnipeg added to their lead on an odd-man rush, Morgan Barron scored his third of the season putting a loose puck into the net at 17:54 behind Jesper Wallstedt for a 2-0 lead. Winnipeg outshot Minnesota 10-6 in the opening 20 minutes.

"We knew that they were on a back-to-back, they're obviously going to be a little bit tired. We wanted to have a good start, we haven't had that as of late, so I think our first period was huge," said Cole Perfetti.

"We wanted to take them out of the game and I think we did that."

POWER PLAY

The Jets power play continued to thrive in the second period, when Neal Pionk one-timed a pass from Cole Perfetti past a screened Wallstedt for a 3-0 lead. The 2024-25 campaign is just the second in franchise history to feature the club score 35 or more power-play goals through their first 35 games of a season. The other: 2005-06 (52 w/ ATL).

CONTAINING KAPRIZOV

Coming into Saturday’s game, Wild leading scorer and early candidate for the Hart Trophy Kirill Kaprizov had not recorded a point against the Jets in the 2024-25 season. In fact, the Jets have never kept Kaprizov off the scoresheet in three seasons prior to this one. The Russian forward was held to just three shots tonight even with the Wild having four power plays.