Jets steamroll Stars, score 6 after trading captain Ladd

Joel Armia scored twice to double his season total, and the short-handed Winnipeg Jets beat the Dallas Stars 6-3 on Thursday night.

Blake Wheeler and Toby Enstrom scored during Winnipeg's three-goal first period, and Mark Scheifele and Jacob Trouba scored in the three-goal third. Scheifele also had three assists and Michael Hutchinson had 27 saves.

"It was awesome," said Armia, who had two goals in his first 29 NHL games. "I just tried to get a scoring chance for me. I don't know, it just happened. It was good."

Jason Spezza had two goals for Dallas, including the tying score early in the third period, and Tyler Seguin also scored. Patrick Sharp assisted on all three goals. Antti Niemi gave up three goals on eight shots in the opening period, and Kari Lehtonen came on to start the second and finished with 17 saves.

Scheifele had the tiebreaking goal just under seven minutes into the third, and Armia made it 5-3 just 40 seconds later. Armia also had an assist on Trouba's score with 4:05 left.

Winnipeg, last in the Central Division, ended a four-game losing streak.

Ladd traded before game to Chicago Blackhawks

The Jets were playing without former captain Andrew Ladd, traded to Chicago earlier in the day, and injured centre Bryan Little.

"I'm going to miss him, so it's tough to swallow," said the Jets' Blake Wheeler. "Selfishly I still wish he was sitting right next to me. He goes to a place where he's obviously really comfortable. He knows a lot of those guys, so I think it'll be a good fit for him."

Winnipeg scored all of its first-period goals in the five minutes, with Armia making it 3-0 with just under three seconds left.

Spezza got the Stars on the scoreboard with a power-play goal just under two minutes into the second. Seguin's 32nd of the season, also with the man-advantage, pulled Dallas within one less than two minutes later.

Spezza's second of the game tied it at 2:23 of the third.

"We looked like a slow team. I don't know why we didn't play quick enough," Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. "I thought our defence had a tough night with some breakdowns. I thought our goaltending had a tough night."

Dallas still leads the Central by one point over Chicago, which lost to Nashville.

In the first period, Wheeler skated in from the right and lifted a shot over Niemi into the upper right corner of the net with 4:57 left.

Just 56 seconds later, the Stars' Valeri Nichushkin went low trying to block Enstrom's shot, but he lifted the puck over Nichushkin and under the crossbar. Armia's shot from the left faceoff circle tricked between Niemi's legs just before time expired.