WINNIPEG — The “here we go again” folks can take a seat for now. 

Despite the series being tied 2-2, the Winnipeg Jets were on their heels heading into Game 5 after laying two eggs in St. Louis.

Connor Hellebuyck had been shaky. The power play had lost its lustre. Secondary scoring was non-existent. 

But as we’ve come to learn this season, these Jets aren’t like years past. And Wednesday’s 5-3 win over the Blues was a perfect example of just that. 

They had every reason to roll over when Mark Scheifele exited the game after the first period.

“Sometimes when you lose your No. 1 centre, you lose a key piece to your lineup, there can be a bit of a sag, an emotional letdown,” Adam Lowry said from the podium after Winnipeg took a 3-2 series lead. “But you know, I thought the guys really rallied around it. Coming in the intermission and finding out he’s not coming back, guys were upbeat. Guys needed to step up.”

The Jets’ middle-six, which had been rather lacklustre all series long, punched above their weight. 

Vladislav Namestnikov — widely perceived as the weak link in the top-six — stepped into Scheifele’s shoes and kept the top line afloat, finishing the night off with one goal and one assist. He did so while being matched up against the Blues’ top guns through the final 40 minutes. 

Those individual performances wouldn’t have been made possible if this team didn’t get back to looking like it did throughout the regular season.

“We were physical. We were battling. Competing. Doing all the things we have to do to get ourselves going,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “Just real proud of the way the guys stuck together and just played our game. We got to Jet hockey. We got to Jet hockey early and we played it for 60 minutes.”

With the exception of St. Louis’s first goal — a net front tip by Nathan Walker — Winnipeg found a way to tame the chaos in front of Hellebuyck.

“We talked about a lot of the offence we were giving up in St. Louis being our doing. Us coming out of our structure. Us just not doing the things that we’re accustomed to doing in the D zone, doing in the neutral zone,” Lowry said. “I thought we did a really good job of breaking pucks out, playing with structure in the d-zone, keeping them to the outside. I thought our box outs by our D were great, allowing Helly to make some saves. The defending, it starts with forechecking. I thought we did a really good job getting on their D, turning pucks over, spending time in the O-zone.”

All the while playing without their best player. 

Scheifele was on the receiving end of two massive hits in the first period. 

The first came via an interference penalty from Brayden Schenn, when the Blues captain appeared to leave his feet. The second came later in the period, with Radek Faksa levelling Scheifele at the blue line.

Which one caused Scheifele to exit the game? Well, it depends on who you ask. 

“Let’s make it clear, (Scheifele) got hurt from the Faksa hit. He played six minutes after the Schenn hit,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.

Montgomery went on to incorrectly state that Scheifele didn’t return after the Faksa hit (he played another shift at the tail-end of the first period). 

“I didn’t know Monty got his medical degree, trying to say how our player got hurt,” Arniel responded when asked about Montgomery’s assessment. “He’s way off base. He should not make that comment. There’s some things that have been going on in this series and that was a repeat of what we’ve seen before. A player leaving his feet and then hitting a player in a very unprotected spot. Hitting him in the sense of almost blindsiding him. I’m not happy with how the call was made. A two-minute minor. Not even looking at it is what I was upset about. And it is something that we have talked to the league about for five games.”

Arniel didn’t have an update on Scheifele’s status after the game and couldn’t confirm or deny if his top-line centre would be making the trip to St. Louis. 

“I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see till tomorrow. I’ll find out what’s going on,” Arniel said. “We don’t discuss injuries, especially this time of year.”