High-flying Jets score early, often to pummel Red Wings, 6-2

DETROIT — The Red Wings found out Wednesday how good the Winnipeg Jets are playing these days.

The Jets won their ninth game in the first 10 this season, flying to an early lead and eventually defeating the Wings, 6-2.

The Jets took a 3-0 first-period lead, saw the Wings crawl back with two second-period, power-play goals, but pulled away in the third period to push the Wings' (4-5-1) winless streak to three games.

Dylan Larkin and Alex DeBrincat had second period power-play goals — Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider had assists on both goals — to slice Winnipeg's lead to 3-2.

But Winnipeg's Nino Niederreiter scored 10 seconds into the third period, and Neal Pionk scored his second goal of the night (third of season), on the power play at 7:19, and Colin Miller scored his second goal just seconds after a Jets' power play expired at 10:25 to extend the lead to 6-2.

Larkin's one-timer off a Raymond pass, Larkin's fifth goal, cut the lead to 3-1 at 8:13. DeBrincat deflected a Raymond shot past goaltender Connor Hellebuyck (Commerce), DeBrincat's fifth goal, at 17:40.

Kyle Connor (Shelby Twsp.), Pionk and Gabriel Vilardi scored goals in Winnipeg's big first period — Connor added two assists while extending his season-opening point streak to 10 games — and Hellebuyck made 19 saves.

Vilardi opened the scoring at 2:48 of the first period, poking Connor's pass on a partial two-on-one rush past goaltender Alex Lyon (14 saves), Vilardi's third goal.

Pionk pushed the lead to 2-0 just 1:14 later, with his second goal. Pionk pinched from the point and put back a rebound of Mark Scheifele's shot past Lyon at 4:02.

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