Wheeler's early hat trick leads Jets past Penguins
WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- Blake Wheeler scored a hat trick in less than five minutes of the first period and the Winnipeg Jets broke out to a 5-0 lead in the first 20 minutes to hand the Pittsburgh Penguins a 7-1 defeat Sunday night at Bell MTS Place.
Matt Murray's night ended just 18:07 into the game after he allowed four goals on nine shots, the last straw being a weak wrist shot from Joel Armia that slid its way through traffic and between Murray's legs. 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.
For the home crowd, the story was Wheeler, who notched his second career hat trick -- and first as a Jet -- and it took a mere 4:20 to accomplish.
The Jets scored three times in the span of 34 seconds -- two of them from Wheeler -- to break the game wide open.
Wheeler's first goal came off a 2-on-1 when he took a pass from Mark 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 the rookie goaltender has seen in his NHL career.
DeSmith 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.
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.
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.
DeSmith allowed three goals on 15 shots.
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.