It wasn’t a pretty game but it will be one that Connor Hellebuyck will never forget.
The reigning Vezina Trophy winner made 26 saves to pick up his 300th career victory as the Winnipeg Jets downed the Nashville Predators 5-2 Tuesday night to end a three-game losing streak.
The Jets struck for three goals in the first period and Hellebuyck took care of the rest with a number of highlight reel saves as the Jets started the second half of their schedule with their first win of 2025.
With the victory Hellebuyck became the third-fastest goalie in NHL history to reach the milestone, doing it in only 538 games.
“Feels good,” said Hellebuyck. “The anticipation was killing me a little bit. It’s not how I played out this week, but I thought the guys played so hard in front of me and the crowd was incredible tonight, so that’s a very memorable one.”
But the win came with a price as Josh Morrissey had to leave the game in the second period after he appeared to injure his knee crashing into the goal post. He returned for one shift but then left the game for good.
“Lower-body – we’ll see how he is tomorrow,” Jets head coach Scott Arniel said after the game. “Obviously he couldn’t play the rest of the game there, fell into the goal post.
“It just was hurting.”
The Jets were already without injured blueliners Dylan Samberg, Colin Miller and Haydn Fleury and once again had to finish the game with only five defencemen.
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“What’s this the fourth time, I believe it’s happened,” Arniel said. “Fourth or fifth time. Kudos to those guys. They did a heck of a job while everybody else (was) stepping up. Ville (Heinola), Cogs (Dylan Coghlan) going in there, kinda playing as a pair. I thought they did a really good job.”
The Jets had five different scorers as Morrissey, Morgan Barron, Kyle Connor, Gabriel Vilardi and Nino Niederreiter all found the scoresheet.
The Jets gave the Predators seven power plays, but they only scored once with the man advantage. And the Jets had a key kill on a 5-on-3 late in the game.
“I think that’s just a gritty character room right there,” said Hellebuyck. “I thought our PK (penalty kill) was fantastic tonight. They got buzzing a little bit, but I felt like we kept them to the outside and allowed my sightlines and blocked some really big shots.
“It took everyone tonight that’s for sure.”
After Nashville got a flurry of shots on goal in the first few minutes, the Jets got on the board first thanks to their fourth line.
Rasmus Kupari attempted to jam home a wraparound, setting off a scramble at the side of the net. Barron squeezed the puck through Juuse Saros and into the crease before Nick Blankenburg accidentally nudged it over the goal line at the 6:30 mark of the first.
They had barely stopped playing Barron’s goal song before the horn sounded again for another Jets goal, this one off the stick of Morrissey. Just 16 seconds after Barron’s opener, Morrissey walked in from the left point and wired a perfect slapshot top-corner to make it 2-0 Winnipeg.
The Jets weren’t done there. With 1:24 to go in the first, Connor got loose in the slot, took a feed from Mark Scheifele and wired it through Saros to make it 3-0 after 20 minutes. Heinola picked up an assist on Connor’s goal for his first NHL point since Jan. 3, 2023.
Winnipeg outshot the Predators 11-10 in the opening 20 minutes despite Nashville having the game’s only power play to that point.
The Predators got two more power play chances late in the second and that helped them get on the board with 3:15 left.
With Neal Pionk in the box for delay of game, Logan Stanley failed to clear the puck after a faceoff win, giving Nashville the chance to cycle the puck before Filip Forsberg ripped a shot high over the shoulder of Hellebuyck to make it 3-1.
Winnipeg finally got a power play look in the third and made quick work of it. Scheifele found Nikolaj Ehlers at the left faceoff dot, who slap-passed it in front to Vilardi, who steered it past Saros to make it 4-1 at the 7:51 mark of the third.
From there, the Jets held on for dear life. Roman Josi cut the lead to two when his point shot redirected off the skate of Stanley and in at the 9:25 mark.
Just over a minute later, Stanley was sent off for a high-sticking double minor, followed shortly thereafter by a soft hooking call on Connor. The Jets managed to kill it off thanks to some hard work by Pionk and Dylan DeMelo and great goaltending from Hellebuyck, earning them a loud ovation once the kill was over.
With 2:50 to go, the Predators pulled Saros for an extra attacker but Niederreiter scored into the empty net with a long-range lob with 2:05 to seal the win.
The Jets will have a couple days to heal up before hosting the Kings on Friday.
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