After losing his father, Brad, overnight on Friday, Mark Scheifele scored a goal for the Winnipeg Jets to open the scoring in Game 6 against the Dallas Stars.
On Saturday evening, ahead of Winnipeg’s contest against the Stars, Jets coach Scott Arniel confirmed that Scheifele would still play, saying he “wants to play for (his dad).”
Just before the game, Arniel spoke about the team being motivated to play for Scheifele.
“Certainly, when life situations happen like this, they're hard on everybody. But you know what? Mark doesn't want those guys to hang their heads or be down. He wants a win. And that's what they're all talking about: ‘We want to get a win for Mr. Scheifele (and) get a chance to get ourselves back home to play Game 7.’ ”
Despite the death of Scheifele’s father still being raw, he gave the Jets a 1-0 lead in the second period.
The play started in the left corner of Dallas’ zone, where right winger Gabriel Vilardi won a puck battle. He found left winger Kyle Connor, who fired the puck on goal and Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger made a pad save, but the puck rebounded into the slot area. Scheifele picked up the puck and made no mistake from point-blank range.
Scheifele celebrated the goal with a smile on his face, followed by smiles and hugs from his teammates who were on the ice.
THAT ONE WAS FOR DAD 💙 pic.twitter.com/gI5Zj2MeGd
— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) May 18, 2025
That was Scheifele’s fifth goal of the playoffs, and he now has 11 points in just as many games. This is his second goal of this second-round series, with his first goal coming in Game 1.
Scheifele’s moment is similar to when Martin St-Louis scored on Mother’s Day in 2014 after his mother, France, died. St-Louis’ goal was also the opener in Game 6.
Much like how Dallas leads the series 3-2, the Pittsburgh Penguins led the series with the same score, against St-Louis’ New York Rangers. New York went on to win the series in seven games.
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