It was do or die time for the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night, as the hockey club needed to pick up a win over the Dallas Stars to extend their playoffs and avoid elimination. The rainy weather in the city didn’t stop a sea of people from surrounding the Canada Life Centre to celebrate yet another White Out party in downtown Winnipeg. So the atmosphere was perfect for the True Northers to show their appreciation by giving the fans an enjoyable viewing experience. Here is how I saw things play out….
GAME RECAP
After the anthems were belted out, the linesman dropped the puck to kick things off and the hometown Jets used the boisterous CLC crowd to propel them to a great start. The home team immediately tilted the ice towards the Stars’ end and went on the attack to try to solve Dallas’ Jake Oettinger early. The forechecking pressure by Winnipeg paid off fairly quickly when the officials nabbed one of the opposition for holding, sending the Jets to an early powerplay opportunity that created quality looks for Kyle Connor & Gabriel Vilardi. Unable to capitalize on the man-advantage, the Manitobans were then forced to kill off an infraction of their own when captain Adam Lowry got called for a questionable hold. The penalty killers did a fairly good job, limiting the Stars to a pair of lower danger shot attempts while down a man before they went back on the attack when the squads returned to even strength. The remainder of the opening frame saw the franchises trade a couple good looks on 2 on 1 rushes and the Jets nullifying yet another Stars’ powerplay. In the end, Winnipeg outshot Dallas 11 to 4 in the 1st period, yet the game remained deadlocked as they headed to the intermission.
The Stars knew they got outplayed to start the match, so they came out in the 2nd with more energy and made the Jets defend early on as they tested Connor Hellebuyck with a great chance from the mid slot that couldn’t beat the goaltender’s glove. Dallas’ pressure didn’t last long though as Winnipeg quickly took back control of the puck with some more good board cycle shifts in the offensive zone. Five minutes in, the Stars’ Matt Duchene took a cheap shot at Vladislav Namestnikov as they skated up the ice, sending Vladdy sprawling and making his stick hit another Dallas player up high. The result was a little 4 on 4 play and the increased space allowed the Stars to try to carry the puck right in front of Winnipeg’s net, but a smart pokecheck by Bucky ended the threat. The Jets counter-attacked right after that with a rush of their own that saw Mark Scheifele carry the puck up the right wing before trying a cross-ice pass to Connor at the backdoor. The passing lane closed up too quickly though, but the hometown club got a break when the puck bounced off the defender’s skate to open the scoring. WPG 1-0. The two teams traded chances after this and Dallas came close to tying things up on a 2 on 1, but a solid post denied Duchene the Stars’ first goal of the match. A late powerplay for Winnipeg created a slew of scoring chances and the True Northers even managed to put a puck in the net….but it was correctly ruled to be knocked in by Scheifele’s hand, so no goal was the call on the ice. However, it did give the CLC crowd the chance to show their wit off a bit with a chant of “Shoulda kicked it“. In a period where Winnipeg outshot Dallas 11-5, they almost added a second goal late in the period when Nino Niederreiter was sprung on a contested breakaway, but once again Oettinger was there to frustrate the Jets.
The 3rd period started off great for the Manitobans when the opposition took back to back tripping penalties, giving the Jets a long 5 on 3 powerplay to work with. Thirty seconds in, an offensive zone face-off win allowed the True Northers to get set up as Scheifele moved the puck to Connor at the top of the right face-off circle. Rather than using his great shot, KFC opted to send the puck down low to Nikolaj Ehlers at the right side of the net. Taking advantage of the Stars’ high pressure on the PK, the shifty Dane quickly stepped in front of the net before firing a quick shot to the far side of the net to give his club an important 2 goal lead. WPG 2-0. The officials once again made an appearance with yet another questionable penalty on the Jets, but Hellebuyck hugged the post to stop the Stars best look with the man-advantage. Around the mid-point of the final frame, Dallas took another dumb penalty during a post-whistle scrum and Winnipeg made them pay when Alex Iafallo set up Namestnikov for a low slot 1 timer with just 10 seconds left in the penalty. WPG 3-0. With the Stars basically out of the game, it was time for their players to start acting stupidly and Jamie Benn was the first to try when he mugged Scheifele during a line change & then sucker punched him while he was being held by a linesman. The Jets Brandon Tanev ended up jumping Benn and both the players were handed misconducts and sent to the dressing rooms for the rest of the contest. Somehow the officials figured that Dallas deserved a powerplay after all that bad behaviour, but the NHL’s game management couldn’t alter the final result as Winnipeg sealed the game with an empty net goal when Ehlers out-skated the Stars’ Miro Heiskanen to put the puck into the yawning cage. WPG 4-0.
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FINAL SCORE: WINNIPEG JETS 4 DALLAS STARS 0
FINAL STATS
Shots: 35-22 WPG / Hits: 51-33 WPG / Face-Offs: 52.5% WPG / x Goals: 4.38 WPG – 3.61 DAL /
MoneyPuck’s Deserve to Win: 73% WPG / High-Medium Danger Scoring Chances: 18 to 10 WPG
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SCORING SUMMARY from ESPN
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SHOT CHART from MoneyPuck
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ADVANCED SKATER STATS from MoneyPuck
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GOALIE STATS from ESPN & MoneyPuck
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If you would like to dive deeper into the game’s stats, follow the links below to the game pages:
MoneyPuck: Dallas Stars vs. Winnipeg Jets – Thursday May 15 2025 – MoneyPuck.com
NaturalStatTrick: Dallas Stars @ Winnipeg Jets, 2025-05-15
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BOJA’s Observations:
- With an impressive performance by the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday, it doesn’t leave a lot for me to nit-pick about. Of course some players made mistakes, such as Gabriel Vilardi failing to clear the defensive zone on three straight attempts as the True Northers were trying to hold off Dallas’ 6 on 5 attack with the empty net. But overall, the errors were few & far between and obviously didn’t end up costing Winnipeg since they walked away with a shutout.
- Goalie Connor Hellebuyck was not very busy for most of the game, facing less than 10 combined shots in the opening two periods. Yet, when he was called upon to keep the puck out of the net when the Stars sent 13 shots towards him in the final frame, Bucky was there to make the stops. His 5th career shutout saw the goalie turn aside 22 shots as he netted his best Goals Saved Above Expected rating (+3.61) of the playoffs.
- The 2nd line had its share of rough outings in the post-season, but yesterday wasn’t one of them. The trio of Vladislav Namestnikov, Cole Perfetti, & Nikolaj Ehlers were excellent as they picked up 83% of the expected goals as a line. 12 shots on net, 3 goals, 2 assists in 14 to 16 minutes of ice-time. Fly & Fetts were even better when you look at all situations, as they led the Jets with 94.5% & 94.2% xG ratings respectively.
- Stick tap to Brandon Tanev for sticking up for Scheifele and also playing a good game overall. 3rd on Winnipeg with a 87.9% xG rating and the only 4th liner to finish above the 50% mark.
- Once again the Jets were throwing around the body….big Luke Schenn led the way with 7 bodychecks, but barely as all of Tanev, Nino Niederreiter, Cole Perfetti, & Neal Pionk were right behind with 6 hits.
Well, the Winnipeg Jets got the job done in impressive fashion as they have now shut out the Dallas Stars in back to back home games. Now they just have to figure out a way to pick up the victory in Game 6 to force yet another Game 7 contest this post-season…..and the last time that happened the CLC fans got to witness a game for the ages. An evasive road win is the only obstacle in the way of the True Northers having the chance to make some more playoff magic.
UP NEXT: Winnipeg Jets @ Dallas Stars – Saturday, May 18th @ 7:00 pm CST
