CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Adam Lowry and Blake Wheeler each scored twice and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Calgary Flames 4-0 on Wednesday night to snap a seven-game losing streak and clinch a playoff spot.
Connor Hellebuyck made 32 saves for his third shutout of the season, and Andrew Copp added two assists for the Jets.
“It gets hard to answer the same questions,” Wheeler said of Winnipeg’s slide. “Clearly you don’t have the answer, so it’s nice not to have to answer those questions anymore. But I think more than that. It was a good wake-up call for our team. Our game slipped a little bit.”
Wheeler’s second goal of the night was the 800th point of his NHL career. Mark Scheifele, meanwhile, had the primary assist on the play for his 500th point.
“We were a little confused at first,” Lowry said with a grin when asked about the feeling in the locker room after the win. “Facing a little adversity, it’s not the worst thing. You’ve got to find ways to get through it. There’s a bit of a relief there that it’s behind us.”
Paul Maurice picked up his 300th win as Jets coach as Winnipeg wrapped up its season series against Calgary with a record of 6-2-1.
“When you have the stretch that we’ve just had, you lose sight of your starting point,” Maurice said. “We had a lot of things that we had to get right to get into the playoffs. We got off to a real good start and maintained that, and of course it’s well-documented what we just went through.
“Now you can take a step back and look at the bigger picture.”
Jacob Markstrom stopped 15 shots for the Flames.
“We were coming into this game with pretty much a must-win mentality,” Flames captain Mark Giordano said. “You lose 5-on-5 and special teams, you’re not going to win most nights.”
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Jets: Host Ottawa on Saturday night.
Flames: Host Ottawa on Sunday night.
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