Jets draw first blood against Knights
WINNIPEG— Mark Scheifele and Dustin Byfuglien each had a goal and an assist as the Winnipeg Jets defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Saturday to take a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference final.
Patrik Laine and Joel Armia also scored for Winnipeg, while Blake Wheeler added three assists.
Connor Hellebuyck made 19 saves for the Jets. Brayden McNabb and William Karlsson replied for the expansion Knights, who got 22 stops from Marc-Andre Fleury.
Jonathan Marchessault assisted on both Vegas goals. Game 2 goes Monday in Winnipeg before the series shifts to Sin City for Games 3 and 4.
With a deafening whiteout crowd of 15,321 inside Bell MTS Place in full voice, and thousands more gathered around the downtown arena for a street party, the Jets made it 1-0 just 65 seconds in when Byfuglien took a drop pass from Scheifele and blasted his fifth goal of the post-season by Fleury.
Coming off a 5-1 road victory over the Nashville Predators in Game 7 of their second-round series on Thursday, Winnipeg went up by two on the power play at 6:49 after Byfuglien made a great play to keep the puck in at the blue line.
Wheeler eventually fed a cross-ice pass to Laine, who one-timed his fourth, but just his second since Games 1 and 2 of the first-round series with the Minnesota Wild, as the Jets scored on two of their first six shots.
Fleury, who came in with four shutouts and a .951 save per- centage in the playoffs, made a great stop to deny Bryan Little on a 3-on-1, but could do nothing when Ben Chiarot’s shot went in off Armia’s skate for his second.
The Knights got back to within two at 4-2 on a man advantage of their own with 4:05 left in the second when Marchessault whipped a pass in front to Karlsson, who made no mistake for his fifth
But that’s as close as the visitors would get as the Jets closed things down in the third to improve to a perfect 9-0 when leading through 40 minutes in the playoffs.