Jets ride depth players to rally for 'grimy, greasy' road win over Kings

You can file this one under the heading of "Finding a way."

Whereas Monday’s tidy 4-0 blanking of the St. Louis Blues represents the template for the Winnipeg Jets, Thursday’s 6-4 victory over the Los Angeles Kings was a pure example of winning when a team was clearly not at its best.

A sleepy first period saw the Jets get an opportunistic breakaway goal from Mark Scheifele before the floodgates finally opened and the Kings built a 3-1 advantage on the strength of strong territorial play and a decisive edge in shots on goal.

But before the opening 20 minutes of play had come to a close, David Gustafsson set up Adam Lowry for a shorthanded marker that helped the Jets awaken from their slumber.

For all of the talk about the Jets needing more from the bottom-six forward group this season, those players are taking the challenge to heart and have gotten off to a strong start collectively.

Not only did Gustafsson help get the rally going, but there was linemate Axel Jonsson-Fjallby tipping home a Brenden Dillon point shot for the game-winning goal with 5:37 to go in regulation – after the Kings had tied the game on a goal from Trevor Moore nearly 10 minutes earlier.

Jonsson-Fjallby also drew the minor penalty that led to a power-play goal from Pierre-Luc Dubois in the second period, and Lowry got the puck back to Nate Schmidt for the seeing-eye goal through traffic that put the Jets on top for the first time.

Morgan Barron also chipped in a pair of assists to give him points in consecutive games and was entrusted to be on the ice for Blake Wheeler’s empty-netter with 1:41 left in regulation.

That’s a whole lot of production to go with the responsibility provided by the Jets’ coaching staff.

Although the sample size remains relatively small, the game-winning goal in two of the four victories to date belongs to a member of the Jets fourth line.

Not only is that a sign of progress, it further cements the trust the coaching staff has to tap that line on the shoulder to jump over the boards late in a tight game.

“They were putting the boots to us pretty good. (Goalie Connor Hellebuyck) gave us a chance to find our game. Sometimes it’s easy to fold the tent. But credit to our guys, we didn’t,” said Lowry, who is up to five points in seven games this season. “We scored to make it 3-2 and then come out and get a couple big ones in the second period. They scored to tie it up early in the third, or halfway through, and our fourth line chips in with a huge goal. That’s how you need to find a way to win these games, (with) contributions throughout the line-up.”

The Jets realize they can’t just lean on the top guns each and every night, even with Scheifele off to a torrid start and up to five goals already to sit among the league leaders (reigning Hart Trophy winner Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers has eight).

There are nights when all four lines need to be rolling for the Jets and others when the third and fourth units are going to need to pick up some of the offensive slack.

That’s how middle-of-the-road teams push their way into the next level of status.

“A win is a win, right? Some are a lot prettier than others. The St. Louis game is one you can win with every night. This one, maybe not so much,” said Lowry. “To start the road trip with a win, it was something that wasn’t our best effort. Early in the year, every game there is a lot of learning to be done. There are a lot of lessons we can take from this game. It’s important that you’re ready to go right off the hop.

“You spot teams' leads, it’s tough to come back in the NHL. I don’t want to say we got fortunate, but it’s tough to win without your best effort every night. It’s another thing we can learn from. It was really important we didn’t quit and got back to our game, and what made us successful, and ultimately we were able to win the game.”

This victory to push the Jets to 4-3 on the young season doesn’t happen without another Herculean effort from Hellebuyck, who made 39 saves, including 25 during the final two periods.

“Thank god we have a world-class goaltender, otherwise that game is a lot different than the first period score. Sometimes it takes your goaltender making all of the saves to wake up your guys and be ready to go,” said Schmidt. “Honestly, at some point you’re like ‘OK, enough is enough.’ That was part of it. Your goalie had been playing so well for you that you didn’t want to waste an effort like that.

“Grimy wins, right? Grimy, greasy road wins, with a little extra oil on top of the meat sauce. Sometimes you need it. Our guys really responded well, though. Nobody is going to be happy about how we started and that’s got to be something we address, but I liked the way we finished off the game.”

With Jets head coach Rick Bowness still back in Winnipeg after suffering a setback in his health, associate coach Scott Arniel conceded there were plenty of things that needed to be cleaned up as this three-game road trip continues.

“An ugly win. It certainly wasn’t a Picasso,” said Arniel, who ran the bench for the sixth time this season. “We got off to a real tough start in that first period, taking four consecutive penalties and really got ourselves on our heels and shortened our bench real quickly. A lot of guys never got themselves in the rhythm. We fought back and got into the game.

“I know it’s not VHS tape, but it’s in the garbage and we’ll just put that one aside. There were a lot of mistakes that happened, but there were a lot of good things also. You can never criticize a win, no matter how you get them. We’ll file that one away and move on to Arizona. Those turn you grey as a coach but at the end of the day, we do have people who can put the puck in the net, and we found a way.”

David Rittich is expected to be back between the pipes on Friday night for his second start of the season as the Jets face the Arizona Coyotes in the first NHL game at Mullett Arena.