Top line helps Jets roll to victory over Coyotes
Nikolaj Ehlers seals win late in final frame
The Winnipeg Jets' young top line keeps racking up points.
Forwards Nikolaj Ehlers and Patrik Laine and centre Mark Scheifele combined for three points — giving the trio 26 in the past four games — and Jets beat the Arizona Coyotes 3-2 on Thursday night.
Ehlers scored at 16:46 of the third period with a flukey assist from Laine, as a failed clearance glanced off the rookie's body to Ehlers. Scheifele logged an assist in the first period and has 10 assists and 19 points in 15 games this season.
Blake Wheeler and Andrew Copp also scored goals, and the Jets won for the third time in four games and have earned at least a point in four of five.
"They're pretty skilled. You look up and down that line and there's a lot of skill," Copp said of the first line. "Each one of them can shoot the puck. They've been doing really well for us putting the puck in the net."
Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck, making his fourth straight start, made 23 saves, offsetting the Coyotes' Louis Domingue's 24.
Ehlers sealed the win after Arizona's Oliver Ekman-Larsson tried to shoot the puck up ice from behind his own net. It hit Laine before Ehlers put it away for his 12th point of the season.
Tobias Rieder scored for Arizona with 1.2 seconds to play, but the Coyotes ran out of time.
"They raised the level of their game and we didn't match it," Coyotes coach Dave Tippett said. "Our execution from the start of the second period on was not what it needs to be to give you a chance to win.
"We made some crucial errors and they finally capitalized on the one that Oliver made," he added.
The Jets had only three shots in the first period.
The Coyotes answered Copp's goal at 9:48 when Jordan Martinook dug the puck out of the boards behind the net with two defenders nearby, sending it to Radim Vrbata for a goal from right of the face-off circle.
Vrbata has five goals on the season and 104 points in 159 career games in November, his highest point total of any month.
The Jets had a pair of two-minute power plays and failed to score on both. But one second after the second power play ended, Wheeler's shot beat Domingue off a pass from Nic Petan at 10:18.
The goal was Wheeler's fourth of the season.
"Didn't really have our best game and found a way to win," Wheeler said.