Hellebuyck gets third shutout of season and 35th of his career as Jets beat Sharks 1-0

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- — Connor Hellebuyck stops 17 shots for his third shutout of the season as the Winnipeg Jets beat the San Jose Sharks 1-0 on Wednesday night.

Morgan Barron scored as the Jets won their second straight after a season-high five-game skid. Hellebuyck got his 35th career shutout and became the 10th goalie in NHL history to allow three goals or fewer for the 30 consecutive games in the regular season.

Sharks forward Anthony Duclair looked like he might have scored late in the second period, but the play was reviewed and it was confirmed the puck didn’t cross the line before it hit Mark Scheifele, who got behind Hellebuyck in the net to help out the goalie.

”(The puck) kind of hit me first and then kind of came over. Then I got it with my hand,” Scheifele said, noting he didn’t close his hand on the puck. “Just a great save. Bucky owes me one.”

Barron was impressed how Scheifele came to Hellebuyck’s aid.

“Actually, one of the refs came over and I heard him tell Scheif, ‘Smart play not to close your glove on it,’ because he just swatted it away rather than closing his hand on it,” Barron said. “That’s what smart players do and he made a really good defensive play.”

Kaapo Kahkonen stopped 39 shots for the Sharks, who were playing for the first time since Jan. 31 and fell to 4-2-2 in their last eight games.

“They’re a pretty high-shot volume team but, overall, I think what we did well was even though they got a lot of shots on net, I think we boxed out,” Kahkonen said. “We kind of kept them outside so that was good for me.”

The Sharks had four shots over the first 4:35 of the game while the Jets had none. Winnipeg then rattled off 15 straight shots on goal, with Barron scoring on the 13th with 2:37 remaining in the opening period. Neal Pionk’s shot was tipped by Adam Lowry and then deflected off Barron for his career-high ninth.

Winnipeg added two more shots to finish the period with a 15-4 advantage.

The Jets got one more shot early in the second period before San Jose recorded its fifth one at 1:30, going a span of 16:55 without a shot on goal.

Jets forward Nino Niederreiter had four good chances to score in the second but was denied by Kahkonen.

“You could see there were a lot of missed opportunities for us to generate way more offense than we did,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “It looked like we tried to do the right thing, but we just weren’t. Our timing was off for sure, and obviously Kaapo played well but we just weren’t efficient with the puck tonight.”

Winnipeg led 31-12 in shots on goal after 40 minutes.

San Jose forward Nico Sturm went slowly to the dressing room 8:50 into the third after he was checked hard into the boards by Jets defenseman Logan Stanley and his head hit the ice.

The Jets finished 0 for 2 on the power pay to fall to 0 for 21 over their last eight games. San Jose is 12 for 12 on the penalty-kill over its last five games.

The Sharks were without forwards Logan Couture (groin) and Tomas Hertl, who had knee surgery Monday to clean up cartilage, but forward Mikael Granlund was back after missing the previous six games.

UP NEXT

Sharks: At Calgary on Thursday night to complete a back-to-back and two-game trip.

Jets: At Vancouver on Saturday night to open a two-game trip.

------

AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL