Leaguebest Winnipeg Jets show credentials in win over Rangers at MSG
Nov 13, 2024
NEW YORK – If the best team in the National Hockey League rolls through Madison Square Garden and continues its historic start in grand fashion, does it make a sound?
Apparently not. Not yet, anyway.
However, as somehow quietly as the Winnipeg Jets have gone about winning a league-record 15 out of their first 16 games – including a convincing 6-3 victory over the New York Rangers on Tuesday night – they’ll only start to get louder as they focus on bigger goals much further down the road.
The oft-ignored small-market franchise has all the pieces they need to go on a deep run when the games really start to matter starting in April, so a hot start doesn’t mean particularly much to them at this point in the year.
But they’ll certainly take showing they’re capable of doing it.
“It feels amazing,” said two-time NHL All-Star forward Mark Scheifele, who scored the game’s opening goal just 57 seconds in.
“Obviously, it’s been a great start for us, but the night’s over, it’s a day off tomorrow, and we’ll get ready for the (Tampa Bay) Lightning. We’ll enjoy the win tonight, and then it’s back to work.”
Kyle Connor, who scored twice and is also a two-time All-Star, echoed similar sentiments.
“Honestly, we know what we’re doing, but we don’t take too much stock in it,” he said. “It’s just move onto the next one, it’s how can we improve, how can we get better and I think that’s what’s made us successful to this point. Nobody’s satisfied. We’ve won 15 here, but that just speaks to the leadership and not getting comfortable. There’s still a lot of season left.”
As much as the Jets have relied on reigning Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck to get them through the majority of this early stretch — he made 33 saves on 36 shots on Tuesday night — and he’s a cornerstone of the franchise, it’s “the other” Connor who is perhaps the league’s biggest, genuine superstar that’s flying under the radar on a team that’s somehow still also doing so.
Still just 27 years old, the six-foot-one, 183-pound forward is well on his way to producing his eighth consecutive 25-plus goal season since joining the league for good early in the 2017-18 campaign, and has already lit the lamp 11 times this season, good for third-best in the NHL thus far.
His first goal of the night — he also tallied the empty-netter to seal the game late — was yet another example of the skill that’s taken him to nearly be a point-per-game player over his career; the Michigan alum took a 2-on-1 up the left side the other way, saw just a sliver of space and snapped a wrist shot past 2022 Vezina winner Igor Shesterkin with 3:57 left in the second period to give Winnipeg a lead they ultimately wouldn’t relinquish.
“Kind of a dirty puck on the wall, and (Neal) Pionk chipped it to the middle, and I had some open speed,” Connor said. “Two-on-one-ish, I had (Rasmus) Kupari on the back side, but I was coming with a lot of speed and saw an open area there short side and just let it fly.”