Jets Rise to Occasion, Beat Blackhawks, NHL Scores

By ESPN

The Winnipeg Jets are making a habit of rising to the occasion when they play the Chicago Blackhawks.

Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele and Drew Stafford scored and Connor Hellebuyck made 34 saves to help Winnipeg beat Chicago 3-1 on Tuesday night.

Jacob Trouba added two assists, and the Jets won their second straight and fourth in five games to improve to 17-17-3. Winnipeg beat Western Conference-leading Chicago for the third time in three tries this season, outscoring the Blackhawks 9-2 over those games.

"They seem to bring out the best in us," Wheeler said. "We seem to bring our A-game when we come to this building.

"They're sitting atop of our conference right now, won three (Stanley) Cups in whatever it is, seven years? We're willing to grind it out for 60 minutes."

The Jets outskated and outworked the swift, talented Blackhawks for much of the night, beating them to loose pucks. Then the scoring chances seemed to take care of themselves.

"When we come out and play Chicago, we don't think about offense," coach Paul Maurice said. "We hit four or five posts tonight. That's offense, but we play the game the right way, play it real hard."

Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville offered a simple explanation for the Jets' success:

"They had more speed and had the puck a lot more than we did."

Artem Anisimov scored his 15th goal in his return from missing three games with an upper-body injury, but Chicago lost its third straight for the first time since last March.

"We just need to be sharper and bring our energy to the game and be dominant," Anisimov said. "We just need to find our emotions and get back on track."

The Blackhawks consecutive defeats (0-2-1) have come at home, while surging Minnesota has cut into Chicago's conference and Central Division leads.

"You look at the three games and there were some good stretches in all of them, but not what we were looking for on home ice," Quenneville said. "We gave away some valuable points in the standings."

Chicago's Corey Crawford blocked 31 shots in his second start since returning from an appendectomy that cost him 10 games.

Tuesday, December 27 Scoreboard

Pittsburgh 5, New Jersey 2

New York Islanders 4, Washington 3

New York Rangers 4, Ottawa 3

Columbus 4, Boston 3

Buffalo 4, Detroit 3

Minnesota 3, Nashville 2 (OT)

Winnpeg 3, Chicago 1

Calgary 6, Colorado 3

Dallas 3, Arizona 2

San Jose 3, Anaheim 2 (OT)

Wednesday,  December 28 Schedule (All Times Central)

Toronto at Florida, 6 p.m.

Carolina at Pittsburgh, 6 p.m.

Montreal at Tampa Bay, 6:30 p.m.

Philadelphia at St. Louis, 7 p.m.

Los Angeles at Vancouver, 9 p.m.