Winnipeg set the tone early Tuesday night by dominating the neutral zone, and by the third period, the Jets had suffocated the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Jets allowed only two shots on goal in the final period, capping off a strong defensive performance supported by Adam Lowry’s two goals and Blake Wheeler’s three points in a 5-1 victory in Game 1 of the first-round series.
Winnipeg restricted Vegas to just 17 shots on goal, the fewest the Knights have had all season.
“A big part of our game is pressuring the puck carrier and not giving them much time to make plays,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “They’re an excellent team on the rush. They look for that second wave, so I thought our forwards did a great job back-tracking and taking away those guys.”
Wheeler had a goal and two assists for the Jets, Pierre-Luc Dubois added a goal and an assist, Kyle Connor scored, and Nino Niederreiter contributed two assists. Connor Hellebuyck made 16 saves.
William Karlsson scored for the Golden Knights, who experienced their first regulation loss in nine games. It was also the first regulation loss for Vegas goalie Laurent Brossoit, who went 7-0-3 in the regular season. He stopped 26 shots.
“The thing we need to address is it’s playoff hockey,” Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “You need an intensity level greater than what we had. … But I’ll say this, I don’t think they were doing anything special, either. They get full value for the win, don’t get me wrong. They deserved to win, and they did, but some of it was self-inflicted.”
Game 2 is Thursday night in Las Vegas.
Vegas entered the game as the top seed in the Western Conference, while the Jets were the last team in the conference to make the playoffs. Winnipeg is now 6-2 in its past eight games and continued that momentum into Tuesday.
The Jets had 14 shots on goal in the first period but couldn’t get past Brossoit despite back-to-back power plays. Vegas, which blocked 13 shots, also survived a big scramble in the crease where Mason Appleton missed a chance to poke the puck into the open net.
During the scramble, Teammate Morgan Barron took a skate to his face from Brossoit and received more than 75 stitches before returning in the second period wearing a full cage on his head.
The Jets broke through with goals from Connor and Dubois 1:02 apart early in the second period to take a 2-0 lead. Both goals came from the Jets’ first line.
“I think as soon as you get off, you’ve got to be ready to go back there whether it’s 45 seconds later or five minutes later,” Dubois said. “We know we have to keep the momentum on our side.”
Karlsson put the Knights on the scoreboard with 4:11 left in the second, but Wheeler made it a two-goal lead again 3:53 into the third period.
Lowry scored twice in the final 1:21, including an empty-netter.
EHLERS HELD OUT
Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers, who has an upper-body injury, did not play. Ehlers said Saturday he would be ready and reiterated on Monday that he felt “very good,” though Bowness maintained he was day-to-day.
“There wasn’t necessarily a setback, nor was the progress that we had hoped,” Bowness said. “We’re not going to put a player on the ice that isn’t close to 100% and put him in a vulnerable position where he could have a setback.”
Bowness said Ehlers will be re-evaluated before Game 2.
STONE RUSTY, IN RETURN
This was Knights captain Mark Stone’s first game since injuring his back on Jan. 12. He underwent surgery on Jan. 31 and was cleared to play Monday.
Stone was minus-3 in 21 minutes.
“He looked rusty,” Cassidy said. “We expected that. … It will take Mark some time to get going, and his linemates will have to pull through for him a little bit until he finds his timing. We knew that, so I won’t judge Stoney other than he’s healthy and ready to play.”