As Jets extend series lead, Kyle Connor continues to be a problem the Blues can’t solve

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WINNIPEG — The shocking thing isn’t that Kyle Connor keeps scoring game-winning goals. It’s that a player who scored 97 points during the regular season — and then scored the goal that won Game 1 — can find so much space at all.

Those 41 goals and 97 points that made him the NHL’s seventh-most dangerous goal scorer this season should make him a marked man. And he is a marked man, playing two-thirds of his minutes against the St. Louis Blues’ best defencemen — Colton Parayko and Cam Fowler — who are doing everything they can to contain him.

Yet still, Connor disappears.

Defenders think he’s covered, then forget about him altogether — and that’s exactly when he strikes.

He scored the Game 1 winner by following orders, perfectly executing a faceoff set play. He scored the goal that won Game 2 by following his instincts, sneaking into the slot completely unmarked, just in time to bury Cole Perfetti’s centering pass. In the build-up to Connor’s second-straight game-winning goal, he escaped coverage high in the zone, watching as Mark Scheifele beat Fowler to a puck on the endboards. As Scheifele spun the puck to Perfetti, all five Blues were watching the play down low, so Connor snuck behind Pavel Buchnevich to score the goal that sends Winnipeg to St. Louis up 2-0 in the series.

“They’re just making one more play,” said Blues coach Jim Montgomery of Winnipeg’s lead. “And their best players are making them.”

It’s the kind of thing Jets coaches might have said about Nathan MacKinnon during last year’s playoffs or Jack Eichel in 2023. When the games got tough, the Jets’ opponents’ biggest stars made the biggest difference. The Jets could apply pressure for a period of time, pushing back better against Colorado than they did against Vegas, but fell short in the deciding moments, overwhelmed by those teams’ best players.

KC LOVES BIG PLAYOFF GOALS 😤 pic.twitter.com/zee3xQNehB

— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) April 22, 2025

Winnipeg’s best players are the series’ best players now, and Connor isn’t the only one. Scheifele leads all playoff scorers with two goals and three assists, featuring in five of eight Jets goals. Josh Morrissey didn’t score on Monday but contributed to Connor’s goal. Dylan Samberg was a force at the blue line and on the penalty kill. Connor Hellebuyck stopped 21 of the 22 shots he faced. There were “MVP!” chants between the announcement of Hellebuyck’s name and the singing of the national anthems.

Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou haven’t been able to match Connor and Scheifele through two games. The Jets are up 3-0 when Connor and Scheifele are on the ice against Thomas, while the only Blues player with a goal at five-on-five is Oskar Sundqvist. That may change when the Blues get home ice advantage in St. Louis on Thursday, but this series, as close as it is, appears to be a case of Winnipeg being just a little bit better in the most important matchups.

I think back to the Jets’ six-game series with the Blues in 2019 and remember St. Louis always had an answer in the deciding moments of close games (before utterly dominating Game 6). That the Jets have those answers now speaks to remarkable growth from recent defeats.

“Every single shift matters,” Connor said of Winnipeg’s approach to winning the key moments. “Every time you step on the ice, you’ve got to be aware of that. And you’ve got to be locked into our details. You’ve got to be connected as five and play as a team. I think that’s what it comes down to — you can’t take anything off. It could be the difference one night.”

Game 2 was close on the scoresheet, tied on the shot clock, but heavily tilted in St. Louis’ favour to start the game. The Blues tweaked their breakout, getting away from Winnipeg’s aggressive, pinching defencemen at the blue line, and it led to early opportunities for Thomas, Fowler and Kyrou.

On the shift after Kyrou’s rush chance, Jimmy Snuggerud picked off Mason Appleton’s pass in the neutral zone and Logan Stanley fell while trying to pivot. Snuggerud rushed into the space left behind and fired a shot off Hellebuyck’s pad; only a sliding block from Appleton stopped Oskar Sundqvist from putting the rebound into an empty net. Soon after, Neal Pionk knocked the puck away from Thomas straight to Buchnevich; the Blues’ counterattack saw Thomas’s cross-crease pass to Kyrou knocked down by Samberg.

The Jets had every opportunity to crumble under that pressure. Instead, Stanley hit Kyrou with the hardest bodycheck of the series. The Blues took their second penalty of the first period and, soon after killing it off, Scheifele got the opening goal: a power forward’s turn around Nick Leddy combined with a fortunate bounce off of Snuggerud’s foot. Snuggerud would get his revenge with 1.8 seconds left in the period, but the Jets made it to the intermission tied 1-1.

“Why’d that pass get to Jimmy Snuggerud so easily?”

1. Pavel Buchnevich beats Alex Iafallo, the first layer, with his pass

2. Zack Bolduc, who took an ill-advised Game 1 penalty, keeps Vladislav Namestnikov from getting into the lane:

Big plays.pic.twitter.com/QlZulvoaiI

— Murat Ates (@WPGMurat) April 22, 2025

“I was a little upset there at the end of the first period because I thought that was a (successful) kill,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “I thought we had done it perfect. I thought that we had the puck in the corner with 15 seconds left and to me it was just … every play matters.”

Regrouping matters, too. The Jets took a pair of penalties in the second period but killed them all the way off. They adjusted their dump-ins and their forecheck, keeping the puck out of Jordan Binnington’s hands. They got through a seldom-called “removing the helmet” penalty on Luke Schenn, who was guilty of the infraction but committed it gently. The Canada Life Centre crowd cheered on clears from Pionk and Morrissey during that penalty kill as loudly as they cheered for Connor’s game-winner.

Thus, the Jets did something to St. Louis that no one else has been able to do. Since the 4 Nations Face-Off break, the Blues were 15-0 when leading after two periods. That ended Game 1. They were 3-1 when tied after two periods — until Game 2. And the only other time they lost was against Winnipeg on April 7.

Back to Connor, though. You can almost trace Winnipeg’s evolution as a team through his own development. He (and Pierre-Luc Dubois) were utterly ineffective in Game 5 against Vegas; the Jets won Game 1, but the Golden Knights won four straight. He was one of Winnipeg’s best players in a much better effort against Colorado last year, but Colorado found a level to its game that no Jet could match.

Through two games of Round 1, Connor has made himself a problem that the Blues can’t solve. A lot of the time, they can’t even find him.

THIS IS PLAYOFF HOCKEY 😤 pic.twitter.com/A65fMpr881

— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) April 22, 2025

There’s one more important takeaway from Winnipeg’s victory in Game 2.

The Jets are well aware of their own history and the magnitude of Monday’s win. Of course they know they won Game 1 against Vegas and Colorado but lost both series in five games. They know they swept Edmonton the last time they went up 2-0 in a series. We know this because Connor said as much. But I’ve seen the Jets celebrate harder and speak more proudly after regular-season wins.

It was evident when Connor, Schenn, Perfetti, Dylan DeMelo and Arniel gave their postgame interviews that no one seems to think the Jets have accomplished anything yet. They aren’t getting too far ahead of themselves.

Connor said he’s aware of Winnipeg’s history and the importance of winning its first Game 2 since 2021. He lived that history; he was an active participant in it. His only focus now is on writing the next chapter.

“This group is motivated. We talked about it over the offseason, we preached about it all year: It’s in this room,” he said. “Everybody needs to be better, bear down. It’s dragging everybody into the fight. Yeah, it’s a second win, but we’re not resting here. We’ve got a long ways to go. We’ll take what we can, look at the video, make adjustments if need be, and on to the next one.”

(Photo of Kyle Connor celebrating his Game 2 goal: Cameron Bartlett / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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