At the end of the night, the game sheet might have reflected that seven different players recorded goals for the Winnipeg Jets in their victory Tuesday evening over Boston.
But what the NHL document of record doesn’t reveal is the sheer dominance the line of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Gabe Vilardi played with in the Jets’ biggest offensive outburst since mid-October and their largest margin of victory of the season.
In a game where Winnipeg needed a response after two straight home losses — and against a team with a deep winning culture — the Scheifele trio combined for eight points and were virtually unstoppable.
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They were quick and fast, physical, determined and connected — a spinning turbine of power the big, bad Bruins were incapable of defusing.
And as a result, the rest of the team followed in lockstep behind their number-one line on a night where the Jets, likely for the first time this season, really needed to win a hockey game.
As Jets’ captain Adam Lowry said post-game about his top scoring line, “Usually when they play like that, it leads to a win.”
And not only was last night a win for the Jets, it was also perhaps a subtle message to everyone outside their dressing room that after a preposterous four-week road schedule and injuries to three key players, including Scheifele himself, that adversity can be a gift.
Now, one game — and a major offensive one at that — only represents 60 minutes of hockey in a marathon of a season.
But when you have your number-one line playing with the dominance like they did last night, it most certainly bodes well for the prospects of the team overall moving ahead.
And that’s something the Scheifele line’s eight points on the game sheet might suggest, but doesn’t completely reveal at the end of the night.
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