Nino Niederreiter and Brenden Dillon scored all the goals for Winnipeg in its 5-3 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday.
The Winnipeg Jets and Arizona Coyotes put together an entertaining affair on Saturday afternoon.
A whimsical first period led to an explosive middle stanza, before the Jets put together strong third period and shut down a tired Coyotes squad playing in its third game in four days.
Brenden Dillon scored twice and added an assist for the Jets, while Nino Niederreiter registered his third career hat trick in Winnipeg's 5-3 victory in the desert. Three others collected multiple points for the visitors.
“He’s a bull when he gets in on the offence," Dillon said of Niederreiter. "He’s a big body and knows what his strengths are.
"When Nino is on top of his game, he’s shooting pucks, he’s a goal scorer, he’s going to those dirty areas and I’m just happy to see him get some success and get those bounces like that.
With the win, the Jets improved their record to 5-4-2 on the year and snapped a three-game winless drought in the process. They next travel to St. Louis for chance to pull two game above .500 in another divisional contest on Tuesday.
Arizona opened the scoring just 5:31 into the game, with JJ Moser's second of the year on some shoddy defensive play from Winnipeg's top line.
The Jets directed a number of pucks towards the net, but only four found the target. The Coyotes only managed two more shots than Winnipeg, entering the second period up 1-0 and ahead 6-4 on the shot chart.
The second period was the wildest of Winnipeg's short season thus far.
With five total goals scored between the two teams, things certainly began poorly for the Jets, as a brutal Mark Scheifele giveaway led directly to Liam O'Brien's second of the season.
But back-to-back strikes from Winnipeg tied things up rather quickly for the visitors. First, it was Niederreiter, who banged home a Mason Appleton rebound on a rush up-ice.
Then, just two-and-a-half minutes later it was Brenden Dillon who redirected a strong effort by Vlad Namestnikov past Karel Vejmelka.
Arizona bounced back with Dillon in the box, as Lawson Crouse scored a power play marker with five minutes left in the frame.
But, unwilling to give up without a fight, Winnipeg responded yet again, as Niederreiter got his second of the game just 31 seconds into a Jets man advantage.
Entering the third 3-3, Winnipeg came out firing, and scored twice before the midway point of the period. Dillon got his second of the game just 3:23 in on a heavy slap shot, before Niederreiter completed his hat trick on what very well could have been Dillon's third goal of the game.
With the puck trickling through Vejmelka and toward the net, Niederreiter gave it an extra tap, ensuring its landing place. The goal also marked Dillon's first assist of the year.
“Yeah, it’s nice to see," interim head coach Scott Arniel said of Dillon's offence. "Sometimes, you know guys have to show a different side of themselves. Every defenceman wants to be a goal scorer. We actually talked about (how) we needed more from our back end, whether it was shots or obviously assists, but Dilly took it one step further. Anytime you can get that on the road like that, that’s big."
Hellebuyck strapped down and finished off the night by turning aside every shot in the period - including that of a late-game Arizona power play - collecting his fifth win of the season.
He made 23 saves on 26 Coyotes shots, while Vejmelka only managed 22 stops on the 27 pucks fired his way.
"For all the people that love the analytics out there, if you look at the five-on-five, we’ve been the better team a lot of nights," said Appleton, who had two assists on the night.
"If you clean your specials up a little bit, and if we keep playing the way we are five-on-five, we’re a dang good hockey team and we’re going to win a lot of games this year.”
Next up for Winnipeg is the final test of the three-game road trip on Tuesday night in St. Louis. The game features a 7:00 PM central start time and can be viewed live on TSN.