NASHVILLE Mark Giordano Jersey , Tenn. (AP) The young Winnipeg Jets have grown up fast this postseason, so quickly that now they are headed to the first Western Conference final in their short history after knocking off the NHL’s best team in the regular season.Tyler Myers and Paul Stastny scored 2:06 apart in the first period, and the Jets stunned the Nashville Predators 5-1 on Thursday night in their first Game 7 – continuing an amazing run for a team swept in its previous two playoff appearances.”The telling stat for me in this series is we played four games in here and never lost in regulation against the best team in the league,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. ”That’s what you worry about with a young team. It’s a physical series. We’ve got some skaters. … But that’s a difficult thing to do, to get out on the road … to play well in here as consistently as we did, it’s impressive.”Stastny finished with a second goal and an assist, and Mark Scheifele also had two goals. Blake Wheeler and rookie Kyle Connor each had two assists.Connor Hellebuyck made 36 saves for Winnipeg, which won three of four games in Nashville after missing the Presidents’ Trophy by three points to the Predators.The Jets now host Vegas in Game 1 on Saturday night in a conference final nobody could’ve predicted when this season started.”I like it,” Hellebuyck said. ”I’m excited, and looking forward to it.”P.K. Subban scored for Nashville, now the ninth Presidents’ Trophy winner in 10 years not to win the Stanley Cup.The best season in Predators history ended earlier than a year ago, but in the same fashion on their own ice. They lost to Pittsburgh in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final last June.Pekka Rinne, Nashville’s Vezina Trophy finalist along with Hellebuyck, was chased for the third time in this series after giving up two goals on seven shots. He lasted just 10 minutes Youth Matthew Tkachuk Jersey , 7 seconds for the quickest exit by a starting goalie in a Game 7.”It’s heartbreaking,” Hellebuyck said on seeing Rinne pulled.Rinne tried to take responsibility for the Predators’ season ending far earlier than they expected.”The biggest moment of the season, it’s a terrible feeling,” Rinne said. ”You let your teammates down, and that’s what happened tonight. That’s tough to swallow.”These teams combined for 231 points in the regular season, making this series the two best teams on points ever to meet in a series before a conference final. This was the third Game 7 all-time for Nashville with a big edge in experience over the Jets playing on this stage.Nashville also brought out the star power once again with Sheryl Crow singing the U.S. anthem and former NFL Titans running back Eddie George waving the towel to rev up the crowd. A couple catfish hit the ice before the puck dropped.The Predators took five of the first six shots, then the Jets stunned the crowd. Myers squeezed a wrister between the post and Rinne’s left skate for a 1-0 lead at 8:40 of the first. Then Stastny put a backhander off Rinne and into the net 2:06 later for a 2-0 lead on just seven shots.Nashville coach Peter Laviolette didn’t hesitate and pulled Rinne for Juuse Saros , trying to snap the Predators out of a slow start while saving his timeout. Laviolette called the goals ”fluky.””There’s not a lot of things that you can do if a game’s not going your way if you can’t use your timeout,” Laviolette said. ”It was way too early to use a timeout at that point. Again, I just tried to send the game in a different direction, put a pause in the game and send it in a different direction.”Subban started the rally with his fourth power-play goal of this series with a big one-timer from Ryan Johansen over Hellebuyck’s stick at 15:54. Subban then pointed to the Nashville bench and once there yelled at his teammates.In the second, the Jets simply dominated keeping the puck in the offensive zone and outshot Nashville 6-2. Only Saros making save after save kept it 2-1 until Scheifele’s snap shot for his 10th goal this postseason from the left circle with 2:10 left in the period. That was the first goal Saros had allowed in four appearances this postseason.Stastny sealed the victory with his sixth goal this postseason on the Jets’ lone power play at 11:59. Scheifele added an empty-net goal with 2:33 left.Wheeler said the Jets will take a night to celebrate a thrilling win over Nashville that was every bit the series they expected.”It’s too bad one of us had to be knocked off here,” Wheeler said. ”But night’s like tonight, you try to really soak it in and enjoy it. And then Michael Frolik Jersey , wake up and get ready for a big game on Saturday.”NOTES: Scheifele scored seven goals in Nashville, setting a record for most road goals in one postseason series. Scheifele topped 10 others tied with six on the road in a series, including Sidney Crosby. … Jets coach Paul Maurice now is 3-0 all-time in Game 7s all on the road. … Laviolette is 5-3 in Game 7s, and Nashville is 1-2 in Game 7s all-time.UP NEXT:Game 1 of Western finals against Jets in Winnipeg.— WASHINGTON (AP) George McPhee will only get a ring if the Vegas Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup.Maybe he should get one if the Washington Capitals win.McPhee is responsible for acquiring 13 players on the current roster during his 17 years as general manager and also hired longtime friend Brian MacLellan, who became his successor and built the rest of the team. Kicked around the past five years for trading Filip Forsberg to Nashville for Martin Erat and not being able to bring the Cup to Washington, McPhee has his fingerprints all over this final after building the foundation of each team.”It’s funny how life goes,” McPhee said Sunday in Las Vegas. ”Two years ago I was walking around Ann Arbor kicking stones and couldn’t get a job.”McPhee went two years between his job as Capitals GM and his new one when new owner Bill Foley hired him for the dream job of his life as GM running the as-yet-named Vegas expansion team. From MacLellan to captain Alex Ovechkin, star center Nicklas Backstrom, goaltender Braden Holtby and management staffs on either side, this final in many ways is a validation of McPhee’s philosophy, knowledge and career.”It’s great to see him have success somewhere else,” said Capitals defenseman John Carlson, one of 12 McPhee draft picks facing him in the final. ”I knew he would, based on the pieces that he put in place here.”McPhee was GM when the Capitals last made the Cup Final in 1998 but had just taken over the previous summer. Until the past year Authentic Mikael Backlund Jersey , his greatest accomplishment was rebuilding Washington into a perennial playoff team and title contender that went to the playoffs from 2008-2013.After missing the playoffs in 2014, the Capitals did not renew McPhee’s contract.”When you’re working with (players), they’re sometimes like your own kids,” McPhee said. ”You’re on call for them all the time, you’re trying to help them, you try to steer them in the right direction. Then you get fired and you’re suddenly persona non grata because nobody wants to be seen to be too close to you in the organization. I understand that’s how things change quickly and that’s the business.”Things changed quickly because MacLellan went from McPhee’s college teammate and roommate and then right-hand man as assistant GM to the person who owner Ted Leonsis said gave ”the most negative of the interviews” among candidates. MacLellan said he felt like he had nothing to lose during the interview process, which led to him landing the job at the same time Barry Trotz was named coach.MacLellan conceded Friday his relationship with McPhee was ”not as close” as in previous decades.”I think it just took a little time for things to evolve,” MacLellan said. ”I think he needed a break from the game, needed a break from how it went down for him here and it just took time.”MacLellan choked up a couple of times talking about glory days with McPhee, when they won the Central Collegiate Hockey Association Championship together at Bowling Green. McPhee and MacLellan have had dinner and texted in recent days about how strange it is to face each other after all that has transpired.”It’s kind of a weird experience,” MacLellan said. ”It’s a little awkward, but it’s going to be a fun experience, I hope.”McPhee still has plenty of supporters in the Capitals’ locker room, especially among players he stuck his neck out for. He signed Jay Beagle as a college free agent in 2007 Mike Smith Jersey , listened to now-Vegas goaltending coach Dave Prior and selected Holtby as the 10th goaltender in the 2008 draft and picked Tom Wilson in the first round in 2012.”I have a very fond respect for George,” Wilson said. ”You always have kind of a soft spot for the guy that drafted you, that brought you into the league, that gave you a chance. … He kind of always had his players’ back.”Not only is Beagle thankful to McPhee for taking a chance on him, but he also believes in the moves made to try to bring a championship to Washington well before now, even if they didn’t work out perfectly.”The trades and the deals that he made were to win the Stanley Cup that year,” Beagle said. ”You can always look back and be like, `Oh it wasn’t the right one’ or `It was the right one.’ But at the time it was the moves that he felt needed to be done to win a Stanley Cup that year because we had a team to do it for a lot of years.”Now that the Capitals – and Golden Knights – have that team, McPhee will be there each night to see one of his teams lift the Cup.”I’m certainly proud of the Washington team and the players,” McPhee said. ”Really happy for them – and really proud of this team we have in Vegas.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals—