With the Winnipeg Jets in the midst of their first three-game losing streak of the season, a big milestone celebration helped break the streak.
On the night Sam Gagner played in his 1,000th NHL game, it was Mark Scheuffel whose hat trick helped propel the Jets to a 4-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night.
The night started with a nightmare for the Jets as Vancouver opened the scoring with just 41 seconds remaining.
From the corner of his area, Dylan Samberg attempted a cross-ice pass to the far end, which wound up on Elias Peterson’s stick, finding Andrei Kuzmenko for his 15th of the season.
The rest of the period did not dispel fears that the Jets would be hard-pressed to generate offense with their forward hurt. It took over 10 minutes to register a shot on goal and he finished the frame with only six shots.
Vancouver nearly doubled their lead on the power play early in the second period, but Connor Hellebuyck made a great pad save on JT Miller to keep the deficit at one.
Winnipeg began to turn the game in their favor when they earned their first opportunity with the man advantage just 13 minutes into the period.
Mark Scheifele made the Canucks pay when he found Colin Delia’s pass on a Josh Morrissey point shot to even the score.
Less than two minutes later, Gagner found Pierre-Luc Dubois on a breakaway with a superb pass. Dubois was pulled down by Ethan Beers, giving the Jets a penalty shot.
With the assembled faithful on their feet and the game at a standstill, Dubois ambushed the goal and beat Delia blocker-side to put Winnipeg in front for the first time. It was the first penalty shot goal by the Jets since Nikolaj Ehlers scored a goal on January 3, 2017 at Tampa Bay.
The Jets continued to apply the pressure, earning a late power play that was negated by Dubois taking a pass interference penalty.
But when Travis Dermott was called for pass interference with 27.3 to go, he gave Winnipeg a 4-on-3 power play, and with just 2.5 seconds remaining, Scheuffele beat Delia via a great Adam Lowry screen to make it 3. -1 done.
Winnipeg took control of the game in the period with a 20–7 lead in shots on goal.
The Jets nearly added to their lead early in the period when Dubois went through the Canucks defense and set up Dylan DeMelo from the faceoff dot but was robbed of Delia’s glove.
Midway through the period when the Jets were on another power play, Morrissey was trucked in by former teammate Tyler Myers. He went to the locker room for a few minutes, came back on the ice for a quick shift but left again and did not return.
With 6:49 remaining, the Canucks took a one-point lead. Dubois blocked a shot that bounced off the end board to the side of the net, where Connor Garland collected it and lofted it off Hellebuyck’s skate.
Kyle Connor had a great chance to restore the two-goal lead just a minute later when he was pounced on the breakaway but fired the puck into the net after a few moves.
Some great forechecking pressure by the Jets took up much of the clock before the Canucks were finally able to pull the goaltender away with less than a minute remaining.
But as soon as Vancouver gained the zone, Adam Lowry took the puck and chased it down the ice, winning a run and setting up Schaeffel for a tap-in. This is the second hat-trick of the season for Scheuffel and the seventh of his career.
Hellebuyck only had to make 20 saves for the win, while Delia was saddled with the loss despite stopping 34 shots.
Winnipeg will look to end 2022 on a high note when they visit the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night. Pregame coverage on 680 CJOB begins at 7 p.m. and puck drops after 9 p.m.