Mark Scheifele has made no secret that, after being left off the Four Nations Faceoff roster, he wants to prove he belongs on the Olympic roster.
He continued to make a strong case for himself in Philadelphia Thursday night, scoring twice in 5-2 win, the third in a row for the Winnipeg Jets.
The Jets got on the board first thanks to their third line. It started when Vlad Namestnikov made a strong play at the blue line to prevent the Flyers from clearing the puck.
The puck found its way to Gustav Nyquist near the point, and he carried it along the wall deeper into the Flyers’ end. He passed it down low to Nino Niederreiter, who drove to the net and was denied in close but Namestnikov banged home a rebound for his first of the year at the 5:45 mark of the first.
Other than the goal, not a whole lot happened in the period. Winnipeg only managed to get five shots on goal but held the Flyers to three, with the teams combining for just three shots on net in the final 14 minutes of the period.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
The Jets expanded their lead at the 7:01 mark of the second. The Flyers were in control of the puck as Travis Sanheim sent a pass to Nikita Grebenkin as they tried to move it out of their own end but Grebenkin couldn’t handle the pass. It landed on the stick of Gabriel Vilardi, who sent it across to Scheifele. Scheifele then ripped a hard wrister that beat Sam Errson to make it 2-0.
Philadelphia pushed hard to get back in the game, controlling much of the play in the period thanks in part to a pair of power plays.
While the Flyers didn’t score with the man advantage, they were able to capitalize on a bad pinch by Neal Pionk that led to their first goal of the game.
The pinch led to a 2-on-1 with Owen Tippett carrying the puck up the ice, trying to race away from the backcheck of Jonathan Toews. But Toews couldn’t catch Tippett before the young Flyer whipped a shot bar-down on Connor Hellebuyck to make it 2-1 at the 16:22 mark.
But just over a minute later, Winnipeg answered right back. The top line put in a good shift in the offensive end, handing off to the fourth line. Kyle Connor passed it cross-ice to Morgan Barron, whose attempt on goal bounced off two different Flyers defenders before skittering across the goal line for his third goal of the season.
Winnipeg was outshot 12-5 in the middle frame but put the clamps on the Flyers in the third, not allowing a shot on goal until late in the period.
The Jets stretched their lead to 4-1 when Scheifele one-timed his second of the night off a great feed from Connor on the power play at the 9:40 mark.
The goal marked the 812th point of Scheifele’s career, tying him with Blake Wheeler for first place in franchise history.
Philadelphia pulled the goalie with around 2:30 left, and with 2:21 to go, Matvei Michkov beat Hellebuyck with a good shot from distance on the Flyers’ first shot of the period.
The Flyers managed to get one more shot on goal in the period before Tanner Pearson iced the game into an empty net.
Hellebuyck only had to make 15 saves to earn the win.
The Jets will look to make it four wins in a row when they host Nashville Saturday night.
