Granlund, Washe each has two points, Ducks slow down Jets
Caulfield also gets goal, assist; Connor scores for Winnipeg, which had won three straight
By Darrin Bauming
NHL.com Independent Correspondent
WINNIPEG -- Mikael Granlund, Tim Washe and Judd Caulfield each had a goal and an assist for the Anaheim Ducks in a 5-1 win against the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre on Friday.
“They're fast. They’re a fast hockey team there,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said of the Jets. “We were concerned going into this game and I was happy the way we played. So that was, from our end of it, we had to do what we had to do. And they had some moments in the first where they could have scored and it could have been a different look. But I like the consistency of our game.”
Sam Colangelo and Nikita Nesterenko also scored, and Beckett Sennecke and Jeff Malott each had two assists for the Ducks (3-1-0), who scored three goals in the third period. Lukas Dostal made 15 saves.
“(Our fourth line) had a special night,” Quenneville said of Washe, Caulfield, and Malott, who combined for six points. “They scored a couple off the rush, almost had a third one off the rush, had a couple shifts in the third with good possession and cycle time. We couldn't ask for anything more. That was a special night for those guys.”
Kyle Connor scored for the Jets (3-1-1), who had won three in a row and lost in regulation for the first time this season. Clay Stevenson made 12 saves.
“They turn and come at you pretty quick,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “We had been doing a pretty good job against the (Leo) Carlsson and Granlund line. It was the fourth line that scored those. We really tried to keep those guys in check. They have a really good skating team and we knew that. Of all the teams I wanted to face in the fifth game in eight nights, it was probably not that team. They’re big and they can move.”
Caulfield’s first NHL goal gave Anaheim a 1-0 lead at 14:41 of the first period. He jammed in the rebound of Malott’s shot on a partial breakaway.
“It feels great to get that first one,” Caulfield said. “It was a great play by Washe to get that puck out of the zone and (Malott) had great speed taking the puck to the net and left it easy for me to score right in front of the net. So, it felt great.”
Caulfield had 10 family members drive 145 miles north, about 2 1/2 two hours, from his hometown of Grand Forks, North Dakota, to attend his fourth NHL game.
“It was super special with the family here,” Caulfield said. “It was as close as we’re going to get and it was (good) to have a nice little lineup on the schedule to have a Friday night game. It was super special to have them in the stands. I don’t think my grandma’s been to a game in a while, and it was nice to have my parents and my wife’s family here as well, and my siblings. It was great to have that support. They have supported me for so many years.”
Washe extended it to 2-0 at 5:20 of the second period, finishing a 2-on-1 rush with Malott following Caulfield’s pass through the neutral zone.
Colangelo pushed it to 3-0 at 4:25 of the third period, knocking in Sennecke’s backhand pass that found him at the top of the crease on the rush.
“I feel like both teams, they were playing really good in the neutral zone, and it was a little bit of a little battle up and down, so not so many shots,” Dostal said. “It was kind of our game plan to be on top of them and having good sticks. I think the guys did a tremendous job defensively, and I’m just overall amazed.”
Connor’s sixth goal of the season cut it to 3-1 at 10:36. He beat Dostal to the blocker side on a breakaway after Mark Scheifele spun with a cross-ice pass.
“I thought we were playing very quick,” Connor said. “We knew they were a transition team and we had to just be aware of that. They had good speed and we gave up a couple chances there, and they ended up in the back of our net. Our power play could have been a lot better. We had a lot of chances there in the second to change momentum, and unfortunately we weren't able to get one.”
With the 329th goal of his career, Connor passed Ilya Kovalchuk and moved into sole possession of third place on the Jets/Atlanta Thrashers all-time list.
Granlund made it 4-1 at 14:06, scoring with a wrist shot from just inside the blue line.
“We weren’t getting inside,” Arniel said. “I thought we did a really good job of getting pucks to the goal line and then going from there. In the second period, we didn’t do that quite as well. So, just some mental things that happened. Obviously, some physical things as well. Not an excuse, everybody does it, but the five (games) in eight (days), there were some things there mentally that you could see kind of caught up for us.”
Nesterenko scored into an empty net at 19:19 for the 5-1 final.
NOTES: Washe, Caulfield, and Malott each had his first multipoint game in the NHL. … Sennecke has six points (three goals, three assists) during a season-opening four-game point streak. He became the youngest forward (20 years, 254 days) to record a season-opening point streak of four-plus games since Elias Pettersson (five games in 2018-19 at 19 years old. … Connor scored his 329th career goal while skating in his 700th game. Only five United States-born players in NHL history have had more goals through that many games or fewer: Auston Matthews (430 goals), Pat LaFontaine (400), Joe Mullen (363), Keith Tkachuk (355) and Jeremy Roenick (330). … The Ducks won their first two road games of a season for the fourth time in franchise history, following 2018-19, 2012-13 and 2006-07.
