Brossoit stops 24, Jets shut out Stars to move into 2nd in Central Division

DALLAS -- Laurent Brossoit made 24 saves, and the Winnipeg Jets moved into second place in the Central Division with a 3-0 win against the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center on Thursday.

Winnipeg is tied with the Colorado Avalanche in points (104) but owns the tiebreaker, which is regular-season wins (43 for Winnipeg, 41 for Colorado).

The shutout was Brossoit’s third of the season and sixth in the NHL.

“We know that they’re dangerous off the rush, and it seems like we took that away for the most part,” Brossoit said. “In the [defensive zone] we didn’t give them much, and any rebounds I gave up, our guys were first to the puck. It was consistent the whole 60 (minutes).”

Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers and David Gustafsson scored for the Jets (49-24-6), who have won five in a row after losing six straight. Mason Appleton had two assists.

“That’s the game we want to play,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “That team’s a great hockey team over there, obviously. We knew we had to bring our A-game out there on every shift and we did. That’s the way we want to play and we’re going to.”

Jake Oettinger made 21 saves for the Stars (50-21-9), who had won 10 of 11 and would have clinched first in the Central with a victory. The loss ended an eight-game winning streak for Oettinger.

“We can always keep getting better,” Dallas forward Jamie Benn said. “I think that’s the best thing about hockey. As good as you are, there’s always things you can improve on. We’ll learn from this one. Take some positives from it if we can and learn from our mistakes. We would have liked to [clinch the division] tonight. Didn’t happen, so we’ve got a big game Saturday now.”

Ehlers gave Winnipeg a 1-0 lead at 14:51 of the first period when he knocked in a rebound five-hole from the slot.

“I think the pressure game we got back to, getting pucks deep, all the old hockey cliches,” Ehlers said. “Getting the pucks deep and working on their [defense] and creating turnovers, getting some [offensive zone] time from that was something that we, earlier in this season, were really good at. Today, we got back to that. We played it simple most of the time, but there’s still some things that we need to clean up.”

Gustafsson extended it to 2-0 at 9:20 of the second period, deflecting Dylan Samberg's shot from inside the blue line above the right face-off circle.

“I think against that team, you want to play out front. You want to get the first goal and then they have to open it up a little bit,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “Credit to them, they defended hard. They were the more desperate team. We didn’t give them a whole lot either, but you have to score in this league to win, and it’s one of the few nights we didn’t do enough to score.”

Scheifele scored into an empty net at 17:39 of the third period for the 3-0 final.

“I recognize a lot of the system, for sure. (A) disciplined team,” Stars forward Tyler Seguin said. “Their [third forward in the defensive zone] was always above, their [defense] played well, they’re in your face. We know the style. Couldn’t crack it tonight. A team like that, when they score first or two, they really get into that system. If we get up on them, they can’t really play it. If we see them again, that’ll be the message.”

NOTES: Winnipeg forward Adam Lowry played his 700th game. … Ehlers scored his 200th goal, becoming the sixth player in franchise history to reach the mark, and the first Denmark-born player in NHL history to do so.