After a 3 month hiatus…the Sport Recaps at Arctic Ice Hockey are again!!!
The Winnipeg Jets have been a bit short-handed once they took on the St. Louis Blues on Saturday, lacking star defenseman Josh Morrissey, beginning goalie Connor Hellebuyck, and backside six ahead Morgan Barron. With solely 26 video games left within the 2024-25 NHL common season, the True Northers wish to lock up the highest spot within the Central and tonight provides them the primary alternative to begin working in direction of that objective. Our crew was within the midst of an 8 recreation profitable streak when the NHL’s common season paused for a pair weeks…may they maintain their profitable methods going of their first recreation again?? Lets discover out….
GAME RECAP
When the puck dropped after the compulsory nationwide anthems, it appeared just like the Winnipeg Jets gamers didn’t spend a lot time interested by hockey as they have been mendacity on the seashores of Mexico. In consequence, the St. Louis Blues pinned our squad in their very own finish for the early a part of the first interval, but it was the True Northers who opened the scoring 5 minutes in when Cole Perfetti threaded a go to Nikolaj Ehlers on a 2 on 1. The hometown Blues have been in a position to even issues up 10 minutes later when Logan Stanley pinched within the impartial zone to ship a bodycheck, permitting St. Louis to tie the sport on their very own 2 on 1.
The 2nd interval continued to see each groups attempt to shake of the rust of the two week break as neither franchise may create constant offense. Simply as the sport handed the halfway level, Mark Scheifele floated a fairly no look go to Gabriel Vilardi within the low slot. Regardless of having two Blues’ defenders draped throughout him, Gabe was in a position to kick the go in direction of his stick and swatted the puck out of the air to ship it by way of the 5 gap. The center body ended with Winnipeg up 2 to 1, regardless of the anticipated objectives indicating that St. Louis was the higher crew (1.39 to 0.78).
The Jets had a nightmare begin to the third interval once they allowed the Blues to attain on a wrap round simply 16 seconds into the body. Luckily for us followers, being behind for the primary time within the recreation appeared to spark one thing in Winnipeg’s skaters and the standard of play picked up. This resulted in just a few high quality scoring possibilities for the visiting crew, together with Dylan Samberg beating the Blues’ tender just for the puck to go off the submit and a pair excessive hazard seems from the Jets’ high line. St. Louis was in a position to take again momentum late within the interval when Neal Pionk was flagged for not one, however two completely different holding penalties with 5 minutes to play. The Blues took benefit of the additional house pretty rapidly when a protracted blast beat Eric Comrie to present them a 3-2 lead. Winnipeg was in a position to kill off the ultimate 2 minutes of Pionk’s sentence however that solely left them a minute to strive for the tying marker. With Comrie on the bench for the additional skater, Scheifele helped free the puck on the forecheck and that allowed Perfetti to arrange Kyle Connor for a mid-ranged shot. In his common territory, Vilardi turned one of many heroes of the night when he obtained a stick on KFC’s blast to tie the match with simply 28 seconds on the clock.
The extra time body was not nice, as St. Louis seemingly gained each face-off making Winnipeg chase the play proper from the beginning. Comrie made some massive saves early within the OT interval and that ultimately allowed the Jets to arrange Connor for a pair high quality seems. Neither goaltender was keen to surrender the winner…so off to Winnipeg’s first shoot-out of the season.
- St. Louis began issues off however have been denied when Comrie stretched out his proper pad to cease the puck.
- Winnipeg despatched out Scheifele first and whereas he did beat the Blues’ Joel Hofer, he couldn’t remedy the crossbar.
- The subsequent St. Louis participant made an identical transfer to the primary man and as soon as once more Comrie used his pad to maintain the puck out.
- Enter Connor for the Jets’ second shoot-out try and the sniper was in a position to ship the puck to the highest shelf on his eleventh shot of the sport to present Winnipeg the benefit.
- Needing a objective to maintain the SO going, the Blues’ participant as soon as once more tried to beat Comrie to the suitable and this time they have been far more profitable in getting the goalie to chunk on the feint to the left. Not keen to surrender, Winnipeg’s backup flung himself throughout the crease and was in a position to attain out his goalie keep on with deflect the shot away on the final second.
FINAL SCORE: WINNIPEG 4 ST. LOUIS 3 (SO)
FINAL STATS
Photographs: 28-24 WPG / Hits: 34-23 STL / Face-Offs: 67.3% STL / x Objectives: 2.80 STL – 2.30 WPG /
MoneyPuck’s Need to Win: 68% STL / Excessive-Medium Hazard Scoring Probabilities: 13 to eight STL
SCORING SUMMARY from ESPN
SHOT CHART from MoneyPuck
ADVANCED SKATER STATS from MoneyPuck
GOALIE STATS from ESPN & MoneyPuck
If you need to dive deeper into the sport’s stats, comply with the hyperlinks under to the sport pages:
MoneyPuck: Winnipeg Jets vs. St. Louis Blues – Saturday February 22 2025 – MoneyPuck.com
NaturalStatTrick: Winnipeg Jets @ St Louis Blues, 2025-02-22
BOJA’s Observations:
- 2 pts for Cole Perfetti….now 11 in his final 8 video games. Whereas Cole is rarely going to be a bodily drive within the NHL, it does appear to be he’s discovering his ft and studying the right way to excel at this degree. Hopefully he can stick with it into the post-season.
- Gabriel Vilardi will get his twenty fifth & twenty sixth objectives of the season…together with the sport tying objective with Comrie on the bench. Such candy eye-hand coordination by the winger, it always amazes me.
- Kyle Connor picked up an help on the Sport Tying Aim after which wins it for Winnipeg within the shootout. With 10 photographs on the Blues’ objective on Saturday evening (not together with shootout), the winger had over 35% of all Jets’ photographs within the recreation. Wasn’t the proper instance of the BOJA Increase, nevertheless it’ll do.
- Adam Lowry seemed good in his first recreation again and he ended up third on the Jets in anticipated objectives (xG). His line was the one one which constantly brought on St. Louis issues all through all the contest and regardless that Winnipeg went 8-0-0 when he was out, it’s good to have the captain again.
- Eric Comrie’s stats above weren’t that spectacular, however Winnipeg’s backup made some well timed saves (particularly in OT) and actually did deserve to choose up the two factors.
- The pairing of Logan Stanley & Dylan DeMelo surprisingly led all Jets’ defenders in xG% (79.9%), however they have been helped by coach Scott Arniel matching them with Lowry’s ahead line as a rule.
So the Winnipeg Jets set one other franchise document this season…this time they’ve established the longest profitable streak in franchise historical past with their 9 recreation run. Fairly wonderful that our squad has had streaks of seven, 8, and 9 video games this season. In case you might be questioning, the NHL document is 17 straight contests with a win and that was accomplished by the 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins.
UP NEXT: San Jose Sharks @ Winnipeg Jets – Monday, February twenty fourth @ 6:30 pm CST
