Cole Perfetti scores twice as Jets win seventh straight, crush Blue Jackets 5-0
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Cole Perfetti scored twice and Connor Hellebuyck made 29 saves to help the Winnipeg Jets deliver a 5-0 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday that extended their winning streak to a franchise-tying seven games and kept the team alone atop the NHL standings.
Brenden Dillon, Josh Morrissey and Gabriel Vilardi also scored for the Jets, who ran up their franchise-record point streak to 13 games. Adam Lowry contributed a pair of helpers.
“It felt really good,” said Perfetti, who also registered an assist and is up to 14 goals and 15 helpers in 40 games. “It’s always fun to score and it felt good to score twice tonight.”
Hellebuyck recorded his second shutout of the season and 34th of his career. He is 11-0-2 in his past 13 games, the longest unbeaten streak for a goaltender in franchise history.
Winnipeg, which began a four-game homestand, leads the league with 58 points. Its seven-game winning streak ties the franchise record set in March/April 2017.
Daniil Tarasov stopped 18 shots for Columbus.
“That’s a team that’s going for the (Stanley) Cup, and that’s a team that we’re striving to be like,” Blue Jackets forward Justin Danforth said. “They don’t make many mistakes on the ice.
“They clog the middle of the ice, they backcheck, forecheck our (defense), they finish hits, block shots. That’s probably one of the better teams we’ve played all year.”
Jets leading scorer Mark Scheifele left the game with 13:27 remaining in the third period after a point shot by Morrissey was deflected and hit him on the right side of the head in front of the net. He went off the ice to the dressing room and didn’t return until joining his teammates on the ice for the post-game celebration.
Coach Rick Bowness said Scheifele had a few stitches in his ear.
Winnipeg led 1-0 after the first period and 3-0 following the second.
Dillon tied his 2013-14 career high for goals with his sixth of the season at 3:12 of the opening period.
“We have shown more than enough times that we can score the goals, but our commitment to defense over the last stretch of whatever it is, this has been really impressive and it’s been nice that we are getting the results because of it,” Dillon said.
Scheifele’s assist was the 400th of his career and extended his point streak to four games with two goals and three helpers.
Perfetti extended his goal-scoring streak to three consecutive games at 10:50 of the second period.
Morrissey’s slap shot three minutes later made it 3-0.
“We did (play a good first period), but we had a six-, seven-minute block in the second that we tried to complicate things and they scored two so at that point it’s 3-0 for them,” said Columbus coach Pascal Vincent.
Perfetti scored his second of the game at 3:34 of the third and Vilardi made it 5-0 on the power play at 9:29.
UP NEXT
Blue Jackets: Kick off a three-game homestand against Seattle on Saturday night.
Jets: Host Chicago on Thursday night.
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