Hellebuyck makes season-high 50 saves to guide Jets past Rangers

Canadian center Mark Scheifele scored twice and Connor Hellebuyck, playing on back-to-back nights after Sunday’s loss at New Jersey on Sunday made a season-high 50 saves as the Winnipeg Jets beat the surging New York Rangers 4-1 at Madison Square Garden on Monday night.

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“It was a good clean game, a good team game,” Hellebuyck said after his stellar performance. ”We’ll take wins any way they come.”

Kyle Connor and Pierre-Luc Dubois also hit the target for the Jets, who are 6-3-0 in their past nine visits to Rangers, who lost in regulation for the first time since Jan. 19 when they fell 4-0 at home to Boston Bruins.

New York was 8-0-2 in their previous 10 games and their goaltender Igor Shesterkin finished with 17 saves.

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Connor, Josh Morrissey and Mason Appleton each had two assists for Winnipeg, which had lost two straight.

Vincent Trocheck scored for the Rangers.

“Every once in a while, you run into a goalie that’s standing on his head,” Trocheck said of Hellebuyck’s impressive performance. “You tip your hat to him.”

Hellebuyck stopped all 20 shots he faced in the first period and 30 more the rest of the way to improve to 26-16-1. He also made two key stops on Rangers forward Chris Kreider in the third.

“We had 50 shots. Overall we played a good hockey game and didn’t win,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. ”Hellebuyck was great. You’ve got to give the other team credit.”

The Jets are 11-13-0 against Eastern Conference opponents.

The Rangers visit Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night to open a two-game trip. Winnipeg play against the New York Islanders to finish a four-game trip on Wednesday night.