Kyle Connor scored the tiebreaking goal in the third period for a second straight game to help the Winnipeg Jets to a 2-1 win against the visiting St. Louis Blues in Game 2 of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs on Monday.
Mark Scheifele had a goal and an assist for the Jets, who lead the series 2-0. Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves.
Jimmy Snuggerud scored and Jordan Binnington stopped 20 shots for the Blues.
Connor scored his second of the series to put Winnipeg ahead 2-1 at 1:43 of the third period, taking a feed from Cole Perfetti in the slot and burying a wrist shot glove side on Binnington.
“I thought once we did get that go-ahead goal, we did a great job of just kind of clogging up the middle, not allowing their (counterattack) to beat us up the ice,” Connor said.
Blues coach Jim Montgomery said, “I thought we had good puck pressure on the play up top and I think that play should be killed behind the net by us. Then we’ve got to be able to cover. We want to force the puck up high versus allowing (Connor) to get a shot from the hash marks.”
St. Louis had the early chances, building up an 8-3 advantage in shot attempts through the first six minutes of the first period.
The Jets started to get opportunities as the period progressed — including a pair of power plays — and picked up the physicality. Logan Stanley laid a thunderous hit on Jordan Kyrou by the wall in the neutral zone near the Jets blue line and moments later, Luke Schenn put a shoulder-to-shoulder hit on his brother Brayden, the Blues’ captain, in the corner.
“When we’ve got Luke there and it’s the same with (Logan Stanley), we want people to go the long way around to get to our net front,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “And if they’re going in the corner to get pucks, we want to make sure that they know that it’s not going to be an easy ride.”
Late in the frame, Binnington stretched to get a piece of Mason Appleton’s attempt from in front off the rush off a feed from Vladislav Namestnikov.
Less than a minute later, the Jets finally broke through to take a 1-0 lead at 16:32, courtesy of Scheifele. Dylan DeMelo caught a Blues clearing attempt in the neutral zone and sent it up to Scheifele at the St. Louis blue line. Scheifele carried it up the left side before cutting around defenseman Nick Leddy at the bottom of the circle to the front of the net, where he put a backhand past Binnington.
Snuggerud connected on the power play to tie it 1-1 with two seconds left in the first. Snuggerud’s shot from the top of the left circle hit the end boards and bounced to Pavel Buchnevich on the right side. Buchnevich sent a cross-ice feed back to Snuggerud, who beat Hellebuyck blocker side.
–Field Level Media
