Mercer stepped up for Jets in game about Hellebuyck

There was a big revenge game in the Canada Life Centre on Tuesday night, but it wasn’t star goalie Connor Hellebuyck beating his old team as a member of the New Jersey Devils.

Instead it was one of the players he was traded for, Dawson Mercer of the Winnipeg Jets, igniting the home crowd with two goals including the game-winner en route to a 4-2 win for the Jets while Hellebuyck watched the game from the Devils’ dressing room as backup Jake Allen started in a decision the team assigned to “expected win probability.”

Mercer didn’t score a single goal during his time with the Devils this season, and his performance on Tuesday tripled his goal total for the year to three, which he’s notched alongside three assists for six points in nine games since the trade.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL video coach Steve Peters discussed Mercer’s impactful performance on a cathartic night for the Jets and their fans.

Tyler Yaremchuk: On a night where everyone was talking about Hellebuyck and will Jets fans get their revenge, some of the chants very funny… But on a night where it was all about revenge, it was Dawson Mercer who kind of ends up playing a massive role in this whole thing. He opens the scoring, and that crowd pop when he opened the scoring… Dawson Mercer, very fitting that not only does he open the scoring, but he ends up getting the game-winner as well. He adds another one, a power-play goal in the third period. Kyle Connor scores into the empty net, he had two on the night as well. It’s funny how everything just seemed to go the Jets’ way last night. The fans could have some fun with Dawson Mercer, obviously the key piece of the return for Connor Hellebuyck.

Steve Peters: Yeah, it’s something the Jets really needed desperately. Take the Hellebuyck situation aside, this is a team that needs to stack up some wins after their big losing streak, and let’s face it, I said on this show this Winnipeg Jets team is a one-trick pony, their top line carries everything, well that’s changed. Vilardi comes back in the lineup… They can push Perfetti down, you’ve got Yaeger and Bjorck putting some offensive numbers on the board and helping this team now become more than just the top line, and I think that was critical for this team to get those secondary scoring pieces getting on the scoreboard, and then Dawson Mercer absolutely rose to the occasion, and he was the difference in this game.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…