Jets bank another win, prove Paul Maurice right

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Published Nov 19, 2024  •  Last updated 1 hour ago  •  4 minute read

Winnipeg Jets' Neal Pionk defends against Florida Panthers' Matthew Tkachuk attempts the wraparound on goaltender Connor Hellebuyck Tuesday night. Fred Greenslade/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Going into his return to Winnipeg as a Stanley Cup champion, Paul Maurice was overflowing with compliments for his former team.

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“They’ve come of age,” the Florida Panthers boss said. “Their best players… these guys are now in their prime. We don’t feel there are any holes to their game.”

Despite coming off a 5-0 romp over the Jets, Maurice lauded their speed, their checking line, their structure, their defence and of course goalie Connor Hellebuyck.

He didn’t mention the bank shot of fourth-liner Morgan Barron.

His team clinging to a a 4-3 edge with less than two minutes to go and Florida on a power play with their net empty for an extra attacker, Barron took the puck in his own zone, took aim at the side boards, right around the Winnipeg blue line, and banked a long shot the length of the ice into the open cage.

Someone take the man to the nearest pool hall.

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“He went to Cornell, so he knows his angles,” Mark Scheifele said, post-game. “To put that one in and seal the game, that was amazing.”

It was Barron’s first goal of the season and he enjoyed the feeling so much he added another shorthanded empty-netter 21 seconds later to cap a 6-3 Jets win, nipping their two-game slide before it became a skid.

“I figured if I’m going to shoot it down anyways, I figured I might as well put it in a place that has a chance,” Barron said, claiming to be lousy at billiards. “It was good to see one go in. I don’t know (how) I made that happen, but it worked.”

Nobody asks which goalie you beat, they just ask how many.

Barron’s back-to-back goals tied an NHL record for the third-fastest pair of shorties in NHL history.

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Scheifele scored three himself, one on the power play, leaving the Jets with more wins than anybody in the NHL: 16 against three losses. You don’t have to be a math major to know that’s pretty good.

“He led,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “When your best players can be your best players in games like that, it certainly helps you have success.”

Maurice’s Panthers fell to 12-6-1.

Up next, a season-long, six-game, 11-day trip beginning in Pittsburgh on Friday.

“We didn’t like the way we played in Florida,” Scheifele said. “So it’s just a sign of a lot of good character in this room, that we wanted to bounce back and have a good game in front of our home crowd before we go on the road for what feels like forever.”

His coach seconded those thoughts.

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“The best part was that we got to play them again right away,” Arniel said. “That was the biggest thing. We knew how much better we had to be. We didn’t want to go out on the road for 11 days and have to be going through a three-game losing streak, so there was a lot of things piled into this game. But the biggest thing was just our players weren’t real happy with what happened.”

Arniel says he could tell his team was going to be on after a team video session on Monday, in which they dissected Saturday’s mess in Florida.

“Everybody was involved in the video. Every guy got to be a star,” he joked. “You could tell the guys really wanted another piece of the Florida Panthers.”

Two pieces per season is enough, though.

“I’m glad they’re in the Eastern Conference,” Arniel said.

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After surviving a couple of early Florida chances, the most dangerous from star pest Matthew Tkachuk, the Jets began to take over the first period.

A Scheifele/Kyle Connor rush got broken up in the Panthers’ zone, but Connor managed to corral the loose puck, dance in on Sergei Bobrovsky and top-shelf a backhand for his 12th of the season.

A few minutes later it was Scheifele’s turn, a drop-pass from Connor producing a wrister under Bobrovsky’s catching mitt, Scheifele’s 10th.

Five Jets shots, two goals, and a penalty-free 20 minutes were in the books.

Things were a little more rough-and-tumble in the next 20, the stripes handing out a dozen minutes in penalties.

The Jets had a glorious chance to lengthen their lead with a full five-on-three early in the second, but the NHL’s league-leading power play spent more time passing the rubber around than firing it at Bobrovsky.

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By the time they got their next man advantage, they’d figured that out.

And when Nik Ehlers fired a long, cross-ice pass to Scheifele, No. 55 had his second of the night.

Any thoughts of a rout to avenge the loss in Florida three days earlier were put on hold when Panthers D-man A.J. Greer’s shot ricocheted off Adam Lowry’s foot and past Hellebuyck late in the second.

The Jets took that 3-1 lead into the third, only to see the Panthers bite into it with a power-play goal of their own, Sam Reinhart finishing off a tic-tac-toe beauty.

No problem, just get it to Scheifele again.

Connor did, right after another power play expired, and it was raining inside just like it was outside – only hats.

It was Scheifele’s first hat-trick of the season, the ninth of his career.

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When Hellebuyck robbed Carter Verhaeghe on a two-on-one with Tkachuk, the home side had it all but sealed.

Tkachuk, though, made it interesting with Josh Morrissey in the box and Bobrovsky out of the net to create another two-man edge.

“They weren’t going away,” Arniel said. “Maybe some other opponents might back off and call it a night. They didn’t. You can tell they’re the champs for a reason. They kept coming. Kept coming.”

“It’s tough to lose that one when you fight back to get close,” Tkachuk said. “And then you have a power play, and feel like we have all the momentum.”

Tkachuk’s fifth of the year made it a one-goal game.

The rest is bank-shot history.

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