Hellebuyck, Jets defeat Penguins to end 5-game losing streak

WINNIPEG -- Connor Hellebuyck made 35 saves, and the Winnipeg Jets ended a five-game losing streak with a 2-1 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Canada Life Centre on Saturday.

“With [Hellebuyck], if he didn’t play the way he did in that second period (stopping 15 of 16 shots), we probably wouldn’t have been ahead,” Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers said. “I’ve said this a million times now. We’ve got two pretty good goalies, and they’re top class. We’re pretty fortunate with that.”

Mark Scheifele and Nino Niederreiter scored for the Jets (31-14-5), who were 0-4-1 during the streak, including a 3-0 loss to Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

“It was huge. It’s been a while,” Ehlers said. “You lose five games in a row, you don’t just want to get two points, you want to get back to playing the right way, and we did that for 40 minutes today. Now we’ve got to change that to more than 40 minutes. We know what type of team we have in here. We’ve showed that throughout the season. We need to get it going again.”

Bryan Rust scored, and Tristan Jarry made 29 saves for the Penguins (23-19-7), who were coming off a 3-2 loss at the Minnesota Wild on Friday. Sidney Crosby had his nine-game point streak end (six goals, five assists).

“We didn’t establish the game we wanted to play,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “I don’t think we matched the urgency off the start that we needed to, and I don’t think we played a smart game like we needed to. So, we didn’t set ourselves up to play the game that we needed to win. I thought that we responded in the second period. I thought we played hard but we were chasing the game.”

Scheifele gave the Jets a 1-0 lead at 10:20 of the first period. Ehlers intercepted a pass from Jake Guentzel in the defensive zone, skated in on a 2-on-1, and passed to Scheifele for a one-timer from the left circle.

“Oh, they were flying,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said of the line of Scheifele, Ehlers, and Kyle Connor. “Look at the chances. We’re walking in all alone, breakaways, 2-on-1s right off the bat. So, the win’s got to help us. Eventually those pucks, those pucks will start going in for us.”

Niederreiter made it 2-0 at 15:39 of the first, scoring with his backhand near the right post after Nate Schmidt’s one-timer caromed back off the end boards.

It was Niederreiter's first goal since Dec. 30 (16 games).

“I’m trying to get [to the net front] as good as I can. It’s not easy to get there.” Niederreiter said. “But once you’re there, pucks are getting delivered there, and it’s a matter of timing. But I’m glad I found one tonight. ... I know [Schmidt] tried to get it through. I figured with him, he was trying to get it toward the net, and there was a lot of traffic in front of him. It bypassed them and luckily it went in afterward.”

Rust cut it to 2-1 at 14:08 of the second period, deflecting Erik Karlsson’s point shot over Hellebuyck’s shoulder.

“First period was not good, let’s leave that at that. It certainly wasn’t good enough,” Rust said. “I think from there on out we started to play a bit harder. Obviously, there’s going to be mistakes out there. We could have been a little bit tighter defensively, but I think overall for that last 40 minutes we played hard and got a lot of chances. Just didn’t get enough pucks in the net."

NOTES: Connor played his 500th NHL game. … Penguins defenseman John Ludvig was minus-1 in 11:39 of ice time in his return after missing 13 games with an upper-body injury.