LDN - Sports

Wheeler's early hat trick leads Jets past Penguins

[October 30, 2017] WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- On the bright side for Matt Murray, his night ended early enough for him to catch the kickoff of the Pittsburgh Steelers game.

The Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender was chased from the game after just 18:07 of playing time as the Winnipeg Jets broke out to a 5-0 first-period lead and handed the Pens a 7-1 defeat on Sunday night at Bell MTS Place.

Murray surrendered four goals on nine shots and was done for the night a good half-hour before the Steelers were slated to play in Detroit. Murray has been named-dropped by Steelers rookie JuJu Smith-Schuster as one of his favorite players, and the Penguins keep a Steelers helmet in their locker room as a player reward, a nod to the mutual fandom the rosters share for each other.

Blake Wheeler scored a hat trick in less than five minutes of the first period and Joel Armia's weak wrist shot through Murray's legs was the last straw. The Penguins goaltender immediately looked up to the rafters in disbelief and Pittsburgh quickly tabbed rookie Casey DeSmith to make his NHL debut in relief.

The Jets scored three times in the span of 34 seconds, two of them from Wheeler, who notched his second career hat trick and first as a Jet, doing so in just 4 minutes, 20 seconds.

"It felt really good to get the win, that's it," Wheeler said. "We're going to score goals. (Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor) and I are going to make plays. Ultimately, though, we're worried about playing the right way. ... It's all about getting two points."

Wheeler's first goal came off a two-on-one when he took a pass from Scheifele and managed to slide the puck through Murray's legs 13:58 into the first to make it 2-0. He added to his total 3:46 later when he redirected a Shawn Matthias pass past Murray to extend Winnipeg's lead to 3-0.

Armia then scored his goal to end Murray's night and Wheeler followed 11 seconds after that, deking out DeSmith to score on the first shot he faced in his NHL career.

"Both of us have played three in four. We were fortunate to get the day off (Saturday) and they played (in Minnesota)," Wheeler said. "It's tough. When you're playing a back-to-back on the back end of a three in four, it takes a little bit of time to get going, and luckily we had our legs early and we were able to make a couple of plays."

DeSmith managed to keep it light-hearted afterward.

"I was kinda like, 'Oh, this is happening.' This is going to be the ol' debut here," he said. "Then I got in there and they scored that shift, first shot. So, not ideal."

DeSmith, who was called up from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL last week after Pittsburgh's experiment with Antti Niemi as its backup ended last Monday, allowed three goals on 15 shots.

[to top of second column]

Pittsburgh Penguins center Riley Sheahan (15) shoots against Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck (37) in the second period at Bell MTS Centre. Mandatory Credit: James Carey Lauder-USA TODAY Sports

With no room on the visitors bench in Winnipeg, DeSmith was forced to watch the first period from the tunnel near the Penguins goal.

"When the fourth went in I kinda looked at the bench, they didn't do anything and then all of a sudden they're pointing at me and I didn't even know where my stuff was," he said. "I thought the stuff was in the hallway, but it turns out it was on the bench. It's stuff you're going to remember five years from now: My first start I couldn't find my equipment."

The other goals for the Jets (5-3-2) were by Andrew Copp with his first of the season, Scheifele with a power-play marker at 10:28 of the third, and Brendan Lemieux with the first of his career.

"Not a bad hockey team over there, so definitely going to be some good memories I'm going to take from that," said Lemieux, the son of former NHLer Claude Lemieux.

Evgeni Malkin scored a power-play goal for Pittsburgh (7-5-1) with 2:58 left in the second period to snap Connor Hellebuyck's bid for his first shutout of the season.

The Jets continued their strong play in front of Hellebuyck, who has yet to lose a regulation game this season and pushed his personal record to 5-0-1 with a 31-save performance.

"The reality is we've played some pretty good hockey this year, and we've played some pretty ordinary hockey," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said, "and tonight was an ordinary night."

NOTES: RW Blake Wheeler's first hat trick came Nov. 6, 2008, against the Toronto Maple Leafs when he was a member of the Boston Bruins ... Penguins RW Ryan Reaves played his first game in Winnipeg since joining Pittsburgh in the offseason. Reaves, a Winnipeg native, played his junior hockey down the road in Brandon, Manitoba. ... Pittsburgh fell to 0-4 on the second night of back-to-backs.

Back to top