The Winnipeg Jets have improved to 5-0-0 on the season. They remain the lone club across the league with a perfect record.
On Sunday afternoon, the Jets took care of business against Sidney Crosby and the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins.
Mason Appleton, Nikolaj Ehlers and Colin Miller each had multi-point outings, as Eric Comrie picked up his first victory of the season in Winnipeg’s 6-3 win over Pittsburgh.
“It’s awesome,” Comrie said following the game. “The team played great in front of me. So that made it really easy on myself. These guys battled so hard all night long like they do every single night. Ernie does a great job lining up the system and the process, and I think we do a good job sticking to it, line after line after line, just keep building and building and building and keep following what he’s telling us.”
The Jets opted to make some changes to their lineup for Sunday’s tilt. They gave Connor Hellebuyck the night off, allowing Comrie to start his first game of the season.
David Gustafsson and Logan Stanley also drew into the lineup in replacement of Rasmus Kupari and Haydn Fleury.
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The Jets and Penguins played to a scoreless draw through 20 minutes, with both big plays of the period coming off the stick of Nino Niederreiter.
He deflected a point shot off the post, before getting his stick on a sure Penguins scoring chance atop the Jets’ crease.
Comrie played well in goal, turning aside a number of difficult Penguins chances, including a couple top-notch power play opportunities.
“I thought we had a really good start, honestly,” Mason Appleton said post-game. “There were chances for us to score early. We liked our game in the first and a lot of times in these afternoon games, it can be (about) who can jump out in a lead earlier. But like I said, they got the lead. We liked our game, but then in the second, we kind of slowed down a little bit for half of it and then we bounced really strong there and got those timely goals and carried that into the third and beat them to the finish line.”
But his fortunes would change in the middle stanza, as Pittsburgh came out firing in the early stages.
Kevin Hayes got himself a power play marker with just 10 seconds left in a Colin Miller minor, before Lars Eller doubled the visitors’ lead off an Erik Karlsson rebound play.
But Winnipeg turned things around in the second half of the period. After giving up the two goals, the Jets fired up the afterburners…