Nyquist scores 1st of season, Jets hand Lightning 4th straight loss

WINNIPEG -- Gustav Nyquist scored his first goal of the season for the Winnipeg Jets, who handed the Tampa Bay Lightning their fourth straight loss with a 4-1 victory at Canada Life Centre on Thursday.

“Yeah, it felt real good to get that one,” Nyquist said. “And obviously, with that, get the win. So, it's good.”

Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor each had a goal and an assist, Morgan Barron also scored, and Connor Hellebuyck made 26 saves for the Jets (25-26-10), who have points in five straight (3-0-2). Tanner Pearson and Alex Iafallo each had two assists.

“That was probably one of our most complete (efforts) this year,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “Just sort of period to period, we didn’t get into any really long situations where Tampa [Bay] got momentum. There were some times at the start of the third, but at the end of the day, we did a lot of really good things. Won a lot of puck battles. Played fast, played north as quick as we possibly could, and I really liked the way we attacked and got inside.”

Brayden Point scored and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 26 saves for the Lightning (38-18-4), who’ve lost four straight after winning their previous six.

“This team's been not only physically tough, but mentally tough, and we're being tested right now,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “And when you play 82 games, you're going to get tested. We're in kind of those ruts right now. Now we've got to dig in and see what we have. So this is a good test for us.”

Barron made it 1-0 Jets at 15:31 of the second period, scoring on the rebound from Cole Koepke’s shot on a 2-on-1 rush.

“We know what we’ve got to do, so we put ourselves in this position,” Nyquist said. “We're fighting for our lives here. We got a long homestand here. So 2-for-2 at home is a good start (3-2 overtime win against the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday), and we got to keep rolling.”

Scheifele made it 2-0 at 19:42. As the Jets entered the Lightning zone, Connor circled back and found a trailing Iafallo, who set up Scheifele for a one-timer from below the left face-off dot.

“I think our 'D' made some really good plays under pressure,” Scheifele said. “They got up the ice, they were activating. We kind of pushed (Tampa Bay) back. Guys made a lot of really good, simple plays that a lot of people wouldn’t notice — simple chips. It was a great team effort.”

Point cut it to 2-1 on the power play at 1:52 of the third period. After Darren Raddysh’s point shot caromed off the end boards and back in front, Point quickly buried it from the slot with a wrist shot after a quick touch on the puck from Jake Guentzel.

“[Raddysh] does a good job of putting that to the net and I get a good bounce. I got it right on my stick,” Point said. “It was just not a good defensive game by us and it was a good offensive game by them. I mean, you look at the odd-man chances that they got, and they were skating and we were slow to pucks, and they were getting odd-mans and capitalizing on them. So, not what we want to do and not how we were winning games, so hopefully we can get back to that -- how we were winning games.”

Nyquist then scored his first goal as a Jet to push it to 3-1 at 5:34. Pearson created a turnover in the Lightning zone that allowed Jonathan Toews to find Nyquist in the slot, and he beat Vasilevskiy high glove side with a wrist shot.

“I know it's been a long time coming,” Nyquist said. “Overall, I thought we played a really good game all throughout. And then, obviously, they came out with a push in the third and got the early goal on the power play. So it's nice to put that goal in for 3-1.”

Connor appeared to make it 4-1 at 8:43, but the goal was disallowed after Tampa Bay challenged the play and video review determined Scheifele was offside on the 2-on-1 rush with Connor.

“That’s part of what we talked about coming out of the break,” Arniel said. “Playing forward instead of sitting back and letting teams like that, that are so offensively dangerous, come at you. I just thought our pressure, we were really good with our five-man units, whether it was defending in our end or whether that was attacking in the neutral zone or our forecheck.”

Scheifele then set up Connor to score into an empty net at 17:59 for the 4-1 final.

“There was no chance I was shooting another puck the rest of the game. I was going to do everything in my power to get him that goal back because I was so mad at myself. I was very angry with myself there. That is a loss of focus," Scheifele said. "You should never go offside in that situation -- you should never go offside in general, really. I’m going to hear about that one ... from a lot of my buddies, trust me. It won’t be a fun conversation or text I’ll be getting from some of the guys. But yeah, I wasn’t going to shoot another puck until 'KC' got one.”

NOTES: Nyquist’s first goal as a member of the Jets comes in his 40th game of his 13th NHL season (one goal, nine assists), after the 36-year-old signed a one-year, $3.25 million contract with Winnipeg on July 2, 2025. His last NHL goal came Apr. 11, 2025 as a member of the Minnesota Wild. … The Jets recalled defenseman Isaak Phillips from Manitoba of the American Hockey League on Thursday prior to puck drop. Phillips had two hits in 12:10 of ice time, skating in his third NHL game this season. … Winnipeg defenseman Ville Heinola led the first unit power play and had a hit and blocked a shot in 13:51 of ice time, skating in his third NHL game this season. … Koepke assisted on Barron’s goal to set a new single-season career high for assists (eight). … Prior to puck drop, Winnipeg defensemen Luke Schenn and Logan Stanley were healthy scratched.