WINNIPEG — Mark Scheifele recorded the fifth hat trick of his career and added an assist to propel the Winnipeg Jets to a 6-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday.
The trio of goals extended Scheifele’s goal streak to five games. He has seven goals and four assists in that span. Before this run, he hadn’t scored a goal in six straight games.
Jets captain Blake Wheeler collected four assists.
Cole Perfetti had a goal and assist with Kyle Connor and Paul Stastny also scoring for the Jets (20-19-8), who had 12,527 fans at Canada Life Centre after capacity limits were removed on Tuesday. It was roughly 3,000 short of a full house.
Connor Hellebuyck made 33 saves for Winnipeg, which was playing the second game of a four-game homestand (1-1-0). The team is 4-2-1 in their last seven games.
Joel Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello and Dmitry Kulikov scored for the Wild (30-12-3), who are 11-2-1 in their last 14 games. Their two losses have been to Winnipeg. Zuccarello added an assist and Kirill Kaprizov had a pair of helpers.
Cam Talbot stopped 25 shots for Minnesota.
The Wild led 1-0 after the first period with Winnipeg taking a 2-1 lead following the second.
The Jets were outshooting the visitors 7-2 early in the first, but the Wild picked up the pace and got a fortunate bounce for their first goal.
Jared Spurgeon sent the puck to the front of the net and it went off Eriksson Ek’s skate and into the net at 10:29 for his 15th goal of the season.
Shots on goal flipped to 15-10 in Minnesota’s favour at the end of the period.
Wheeler set up Scheifele’s tying goal by first getting the puck behind the net. He curled out to the side before sending the puck across to Scheifele for his 15th goal of the season at 11:20.
Scheifele scored his second goal of the game with a one-timer on the power play with 12 seconds left in the period.
Shots on goal were 23 apiece after the second.
Three goals were scored in the first five minutes of the third period.
Scheifele made it 3-1 at 1:07 and Perfetti widened the gap at 2:23.
Zuccarello scored his 15th goal of the season to close the gap 4-2 at 4:20.
Connor tallied his team-leading 27th goal just under six minutes later.
Kulikov put in a loose puck at 16:46 and Stastny fired in an empty-netter with just over two minutes remaining.
Winnipeg hosts the Seattle Kraken on Thursday while Minnesota is home to the Florida Panthers on Friday.
