Three things - 300 wins for Hellebuyck

WINNIPEG – It wasn’t easy, but the Winnipeg Jets ended their three-game winless slide with a 5-2 win over the Nashville Predators at Canada Life Centre. Connor Hellebuyck recorded the 300^th win of his incredible career making 26 saves. Morgan Barron, Josh Morrissey, Kyle Connor, Gabriel Vilardi and Nino Niederreiter scored for Winnipeg (28-12-2) who will host Los Angeles on Friday.

HISTORY FOR HELLE

Connor Hellebuyck set some goals for this season to get to 500 career games played, 40 shutouts and 300 wins. The 31-year-old reached all of those milestones here in Winnipeg and tonight he became the League’s third-fastest netminder overall behind Andrei Vasilevskiy (490 GP on Nov. 14, 2024) and Jacques Plante (521 GP on Dec. 25, 1962). He also became the fastest U.S. born goaltender to get to 300 and afterwards during the three-star ceremony showed his appreciation for the fans in the building.

“Going through what the city has gone through the last couple of years and going through it with them and seeing how big we are in the community,” said Hellebuyck.

“And how much people care about us, I think it’s hard not to start to feel connected and as time grows it just grows stronger.”

BACK-TO-BACK GOALS EARLY

There was a lot of conversation this morning about the Jets getting off to a good start against the Preds especially after having the last two days off. The players rewarded the coaching staff with two goals in 14 seconds in the opening period. First, Morgan Barron got his fifth of the season off a goal mouth scramble where he tapped in a loose puck behind Juuse Saros at 6:30.

Josh Morrissey made it 2-0 at 6:46, Dylan DeMelo went cross ice to Morrissey who had lots of time to load up and beat Saros with a slap shot for his fifth of the campaign.

PK ANSWERS THE BELL

Adam Lowry had said Tuesday morning that one of the things the Jets could improve in the second half of the season was their penalty kill. Tonight, one of the big reasons the Jets helped Connor Hellebuyck get his 300^th win was the PK that killed six of seven Predator power plays and most of that was without Josh Morrissey who left the game with a lower body injury. Winnipeg had to kill four of those power plays in the third period including a five-on-three advantage.