WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Tyler Toffoli scored his first two goals with Winnipeg and Laurent Brossoit stopped 21 shots for his second shutout of the season in the Jets’ 6-0 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Friday night.
Jets defenseman Dylan DeMelo snapped a 63-game goal-scoring drought and added an assist, and Kyle Connor, Nate Schmidt and Mason Appleton also scored for Winnipeg. Josh Morrissey had three assists and Nikolaj Ehlers added two for the Jets, who’ve alternated wins and losses their past five games.
Toffoli was playing his third game with the Jets since being acquired from New Jersey at the trade deadline.
“Definitely a special moment and, obviously, nice to get my first one here and, hopefully, keep rolling,” said Toffoli, who now has 28 goals and 46 points in 64 games this season. “I should have had four or five there by the end of it. … You know what, it was one of those games I thought we played really well. It was just a matter of time before we started kind of piling some on.”
The victory moved Winnipeg into a three-way tie with Dallas and Colorado atop the Central Division. The Jets have the tiebreaker for first place, having played two fewer games than the Stars and one fewer than the Avalanche,
Brossoit’s shutout was his fifth straight victory as a starter and he improved to 12-4-2. He hasn’t given up a goal in 141 minutes and 40 seconds, dating back to last Friday’s 3-0 shutout of Seattle and a 5-2 victory over Buffalo on March 3.
“It’s feeling pretty good and then, obviously, the team in front of me,” Brossoit said. “I’m going to try not to get too high on these because you know the opponents that I was playing in those two (shutouts).”
John Gibson stopped 32 shots for Anaheim, has lost five straight and was coming off a 2-0 loss at Minnesota on Thursday. Anaheim has been outscored 27-5 during its skid.
“It starts with me,” Ducks forward Troy Terry said. “We’ve just got to start getting more offense. We can’t keep making excuses for injuries and missing guys.”
Anaheim head coach Greg Cronin agreed scoring is in short supply.
“We won’t shoot the puck. We won’t do it,” Cronin said. “It’s been an ongoing problem. And when we do shoot it, we don’t get it through. It hits a stick or a shin pad and goes the other direction.”
Winnipeg led 1-0 after the first period and 2-0 following the second.
Gibson denied Mark Scheifele from in close about seven minutes into the first for an 8-1 lead in shots on goal. Scheifele was back in action on his 31st birthday after missing the past game with the flu.
Anaheim went on the game’s first power play less than a minute later, but Frank Vatrano hit the crossbar.
Connor made it 1-0 with his 28th goal of the season when he tipped in a point shot by DeMelo with 3:40 left in the first.
Winnipeg’s first man advantage was a hit, with Schmidt’s shot bouncing off two Anaheim players’ skates before going past Gibson at 7:47 of the second.
DeMelo’s low shot made it 3-0 at 4:59 of the third. It was his second goal of the season — and his first since Oct. 14 in Winnipeg’s second game of the season.
Toffoli scored twice in just under three minutes, including one of the power play, to widen the lead to 5-0 with 8:55 remaining. He’s up to 28 goals after being traded from the New Jersey Devils.
Appleton added a power-play marker with 6 seconds remaining.
Jets coach Rick Bowness gave an update about forward Gabe Vilardi after the morning skate and it wasn’t good news. Further tests revealed Vilardi, who was out with an upper-body injury, has an enlarged spleen and there’s no timetable for his return, Bowness said. Vilardi has missed the past eight games and won’t be on the team’s upcoming five-game road trip. He’s only played 38 of 66 games this season because of various injuries.
UP NEXT
Ducks: At St. Louis on Sunday night to finish a four-game trip.
Jets: At Columbus on Sunday night to open a five-game trip.
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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL
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