Just over a week ago in Utah, the Winnipeg Jets played perhaps their worst game of the season.
They haven’t lost since.
The Jets extended their win streak to four games Tuesday night in Montreal as they bested the Canadiens 4-1.
Montreal was the much stronger team out of the gate, spending lots of time in Winnipeg’s end and controlling play before opening the scoring at the 11:03 mark.
An initial rush chance from Cole Caufield was stopped by Connor Hellebuyck, sending the rebound to the corner. Several Jets players collapsed on Caufield, who spotted Nick Suzuki open behind the net. Montreal’s captain got the puck and quickly fed a wide-open Juraj Slafkovsky in the slot for the game’s first goal.
The Canadiens outshot the Jets 13-4 over the first 13 minutes of the game before Winnipeg started to play better, and their red-hot top line got the game back on level ground late in the period.
A point shot from Dylan DeMelo resulted in a net-front scramble, where Kyle Connor was first to locate the puck before depositing it past Sam Montembeault at the 15:36 mark for his 28th goal of the campaign.
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Montreal managed to kill off a late penalty to send the game to intermission tied 1-1 with the Habs till ahead on the shot counter 15-7, but Winnipeg’s strong play to finish off the period carried over into the second.
The Jets outshot Montreal 13-3 in the middle frame with two of the shots beating Montembeault.
Mark Scheifele gave the Jets their first lead of the night with 9:16 to go in the second. He won a faceoff in the Montreal end, the puck going back to the point where Josh Morrissey slid it along the boards. Gabriel Vilardi tracked it down below the goal line and fed Scheifele in front, who knocked it home for his 29th of the season.
It looked like it would stay 2-1 going into the third before the Jets struck in the dying moments of the second. Connor dumped the puck into Montreal’s end and David Gustafsson, fresh off the bench, flew into the zone and won a puck battle before feeding Connor in the slot for his second of the night with just 1.5 seconds to go in the period.
Montreal pushed to get back in the game in the third, and roughly seven minutes into the frame they had two great chances as Lane Hutson rang a shot square off the post and Suzuki was denied from point-blank range by Hellebuyck after the Jets mishandled the puck and turned it over deep in their own end.
After the Canadiens killed off a third Winnipeg power play, they had perhaps their best chance of the period when Josh Anderson was sprung on a breakaway but he was denied by the right pad of Hellebuyck.
Montreal pulled Montembeault for an extra attacker with just over two minutes left but it didn’t take long for Winnipeg to seal the win with an empty netter. Nikolaj Ehlers carried the puck out of his own end before feeding Rasmus Kupari, who skated the puck into the net for his fourth goal of the season to secure the victory with 1:45 left.
Hellebuyck turned aside 24 shots as he picked up his 31st win of the season.
Winnipeg did not score a power play goal on three opportunities but did not take a penalty in the game.
They will look to extend their win streak to five when they visit Boston Thursday night. Puck drop is just after 6 p.m. with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB starting at 4 p.m.