Leafs beat Jets on Kadri’s winner

WINNIPEG — Nazem Kadri finally broke his scoring drought with what turned out to be an important goal.

Kadri’s first of the season stood up as the winner and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Winnipeg Jets 4-2 on Wednesday.

“We need him to score and he knows that. So it’s good he stuck with it and kept working and now it will start going in,” said Leafs coach Mike Babcock.

Kasperi Kapanen, Tyler Ennis and John Tavares also scored for the Leafs (7-3-0), who will host Winnipeg on Saturday. Nikolaj Ehlers and Mark Scheifele scored in the third period for the Jets (6-3-1).

Frederik Andersen stopped 38 shots for the win, while Connor Hellebuyck made 35 saves in defeat.

Winnipeg wrapped up its six-game homestand 4-1-1 and now hit the road with stops in Detroit on Friday, Toronto on Saturday and then a long haul across the Atlantic to Helsinki, Finland, for games Nov. 1-2 against the Florida Panthers.

“We’re more concerned with our defending than anything else,” said Jets coach Paul Maurice.

Mitch Marner set up Tavares to round out Wednesday’s scoring and said the Leafs need to carry the same style of play into Saturday’s rematch.

“For us, it’s just making sure that we slow their big guys down,” said Marner. “We want to make sure we’re quick, we’re fast. We haven’t been good on home ice recently. We’ve got to make sure we step it up.”