WINNIPEG
Custom New York Islanders Jerseys , Manitoba (AP) Kyle Connor simply wanted to get off a shot. He ended up with much more.The Jets rookie scored 3:16 into overtime
and Winnipeg edged the Anaheim Ducks 3-2 on Friday night to set a single-season
franchise record for points.”I put a lot of pucks on net and shoot it, just try
to get it off quick,” Connor said. ”That was pretty much going through my mind
on that rush.”Mark Scheifele and Nikolaj Ehlers also scored for the Jets
(45-19-10), who won their fourth straight to reach the 100-point plateau for the
first time. Winnipeg had 99 points in the 2014-15 season before being swept in
the first round of the playoffs by the Ducks.The game was the second straight in
which Connor scored the overtime winner. The rookie had both goals in Winnipeg’s
2-1 win over Los Angeles on Tuesday night.”He’s gotten better and better as the
season’s gone on,” Scheifele said of Connor. ”He goes to the right spots. He
battles hard in the corner, he goes to the right areas, he goes to the dirty
areas. He does everything so well and, obviously, his knack for scoring is top
notch.”He’s been really fun to play with this season. It’s exciting to see him
grow like that.”Scheifele had the second of his two assists in the game on
Connor’s shot that beat John Gibson to win it. Blake Wheeler also finished with
two assists as the Jets remained unbeaten on their six-game homestand
(4-0-0).”We put a lot at (Gibson) and it seemed like he was making one save
after another,” Connor said. ”I thought we played a really good game.”Nick
Ritchie tied it at 2 for Anaheim at 10:17 of the third period. He went in alone
on Connor Hellebuyck, who squeezed his pads on the shot
www.senatorsshoponline.com , but the puck dropped under him and went over the goal line. Derek Grant also
scored for Anaheim, which had its four-game win streak end. The Ducks were
playing without captain Ryan Getzlaf after he was scratched with the flu.”We
were very, very fortunate to get out of this game with one point. Simple as
that,” Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle said. ”Our goaltender stole us a point here
tonight.”Winnipeg had outshot the visitors 41-16 heading into
overtime.Hellebuyck made 16 saves for Winnipeg to pick up his 38th win of the
season. Gibson kept his team in the game with some big saves, stopping 39 shots
for Anaheim.”It was a pretty one-sided game,” Ritchie said. ”When we look back
at how we played, we’ll definitely take that point and move forward and know
that we were pretty bad tonight. We pretty much hung (Gibson) out. He – I don’t
know how, but somehow – got us that point.”Winnipeg had second-year star Patrik
Laine back in its lineup. He left Tuesday’s game early in the second period
after blocking a shot with his left foot. The initial prognosis for the
soft-tissue bruise was he’d miss Friday’s game and likely Sunday’s, but Laine
participated in the morning skate and was deemed good to go.”I think he did
really, really good,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. ”I’m going to fire a couple
shots off his ankle tomorrow in practice. It will be my shot
Ottawa Senators T-Shirts Womens , so it won’t really hurt him.”Anaheim used its first power play of the game to go up 1-0 as Grant deflected in a shot by Hampus
Lindholm with 14 seconds left in a high-sticking penalty to Joel Armia. Winnipeg
responded just 55 seconds later when Ehlers scored his 28th goal of the season
with a toe drag and high wrister that beat Gibson at 6:46.Scheifele picked up
the primary assist, extending his points streak to three games since returning
from an injury that kept him out for five. Wheeler notched his 63rd assist on
the play, stretching his point streak to five games.The Jets swarmed Gibson for
most of the period, outshooting the Ducks 17-4.Winnipeg went ahead 45 seconds
into the second after Wheeler did some nifty stick-handling around Ducks
defenseman Cam Fowler, then passed it back for Scheifele, who fired a shot in
over Gibson’s blocker.NOTES: Veteran Winnipeg defenseman Toby Enstrom left the
game with a lower-body injury, but Maurice didn’t think it was a significant
injury.UP NEXTDucks: at Edmonton on Sunday.Jets: hosts Central Division-leading
Nashville on Sunday. TORONTO (AP) — Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews? Auston
Matthews or Connor McDavid?With debate ramping up about which player sits atop
hockey’s throne — after some remarkable early performances — Maple Leafs coach
Mike Babcock’s goes in a different direction — Sidney Crosby.“This is what I
think,” Babcock began as he made his case for the Penguins captain before
Pittsburgh’s 3-0 victory over Toronto on Thursday. “I think one guy’s got two
Olympic gold medals and three Stanley Cups.”And the other guys?“They
don’t.”McDavid, the Edmonton Oilers captain with blazing speed, has won
back-to-back NHL scoring titles and the Hart Trophy as the league’s most
valuable player. Matthews, the Maple Leafs’ deadly sniper
Ottawa Senators Hoodies Womens , has the most points in the league, 16 in just eight games.McDavid set an NHL record this week by becoming the only player to
either score or assist on the first nine goals of his team’s season.Matthews has
a lethal shot that often leaves a goalie looking up at the replay for a glimpse
at a puck that just whizzed by him. He is just the fifth player to have seven
straight multipoint games to start a season.Babcock is quick to acknowledge what
these 21-year-old phenoms have done. But he says personal accolades matter only
so much.Crosby is 31 and has been on top of the hockey world for the better part
of the last decade. He won the Cup in 2009, 2016 and 2017 to go along with gold
medals for Canada at the 2010 and 2014 Olympics.Had it not been for the
concussions that limited him to 63 of his team’s 164 games between 2010 and
2012, the two-time Hart and Conn Smythe Trophy winner might own even more
hardware.Babcock coached Crosby at the Vancouver and Sochi Games, and again at
the World Cup of Hockey in 2016, which Canada also won.“Team success in the end,
that’s how you’re measured,” he said. “When you’ve been the best player on the
best team, to me that’s totally different than being the best player on a team
that’s not as good. As you’ve got people around you to raise your game and set a
standard … to me, it’s not even close.”Mike Sullivan became Pittsburgh’s coach
during the 2015-16 season and immediately grew to appreciate Crosby’s
gifts.“Sid’s the most driven athlete I’ve ever been around,” he said. “Not only
is he an elite player
Ottawa Senators Hats Womens , but he’s willing to put the work in to continue to try to be the best player he can be. … I have the privilege of watching him on a daily
basis put the work in to be the player that he is.”Toronto center Nazem Kadri
says it’s tough to pick among Crosby, McDavid and Matthews.“I still think Sid’s
an incredible player and McDavid’s definitely up there,” he said. “(Matthews) is
creeping up there. … To me, McDavid’s speed is just incredible and so hard to
stop. You can’t necessarily make a mistake when he’s on the ice because when
you’re beside him you’re going to be behind him.”Maple Leafs center John Tavares
went head-to-head with Crosby for nine seasons while with the New York
Islanders.“He doesn’t take anything for granted and his work ethic’s
tremendous,” Tavares said. “He puts a lot of commitment into being the player
that he is.”Crosby has five assists in six games this season playing on a line
with Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust — the first time he’s gone without a goal this
long. But Sullivan’s admiration is undiminished.“He leaves no stone unturned,”
Sullivan said. “He takes care of himself physically. He trains so hard, both off
the ice and on the ice. We learn as much from Sid as I think he does from our
coaching staff with just the way he thinks the game.”
