WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- After his best game of the season, Mathieu Perreault said it could have been easy to slip into a funk after the Winnipeg Jets went up 3-0 early in the first period.

Perreault scored the game-winner, his only shot of the game, and assisted on three other goals as the Jets held on to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-4 on Thursday.

Perreault's fourth goal of the season put the Jets up 5-2 near the midway point of the third period.

"When you get up three goals right away like that, sometimes you kind of have a tendency to just kind of sit back and relax, thinking this game is won already," he said. "But, like I say, they never quit, they made a game out of it. But we're happy with the two points."

The Blue Jackets clawed back from two-goal deficits three times, but an empty-net goal from right winger Blake Wheeler put the game out of reach in the later stages of the third period.

"Give them credit for not quitting," Perreault said of the Blue Jackets. "We had two times a three-goal lead and they came back and almost made it a tie game."

Center Mark Scheifele fired home his team-leading 11th of the season while defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, right winger Drew Stafford and center Adam Lowry also scored for Winnipeg (14-13-2).

The line of Stafford, Scheifele and Perreault combined for nine points.

Right winger Cam Atkinson scored twice for the Blue Jackets (11-17-2). Center Boone Jenner and left winger Scott Hartnell both scored their 12th goals of the season for Columbus. They are tied for the team lead in that department.

"I thought for the most part we played a really solid game," Atkinson said. "There's a lot of positives to take form here. Obviously, we didn't get the result we wanted. We stuck together as a team. We're going to keep finding ways to get points."

Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck steered aside 25 shots and remained a perfect 4-0-0 to start his NHL career.

"I'm absolutely happy anytime the team wins," Hellebuyck said, deflecting the spotlight off himself following the win. "I hope we win tomorrow night, too. We just need more points and we need to keep climbing the standings."

Blue Jackets goaltender Curtis McElhinney is still searching for his first win of the season. He is 0-5-1 on the year after allowing five goals on 34 shots.

"It wasn't the performance nor anywhere close to the result my team needed from me in order to put a winning effort forward," McElhinney said. "The goal support was there, but on my end it wasn't... it wasn't good enough."

The scoring came early and often in the first period. In fact, it took the Jets just 27 seconds to get on the board.

Scheifele scored his 11th after grabbing his own rebound on a shot that deflected high off the glass behind McElhinney. The puck found its way back in front of the Blue Jackets' goal, and Scheifele banked it in off McElhinney's pad.

The Jets doubled up on their lead as Lowry notched his first of the season after deflecting a point shot off the stick of Byfuglien just under two minutes later.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Winnipeg's two goals in 2:22 to start a game were the second-fastest pair in franchise history. The fastest two came in a 2002 game in a time of 1:22.

Byfuglien found the back of the net at 10:48 after letting a blast go from the point on the power play for his eighth of the season.

"We lost the game," said Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella. "We lost the game, so we can break it down all you want as far as a push here and a push there -- we didn't play well enough to win."

The Blue Jackets pulled one back off the stick of Jenner, who only had to tap the puck past Hellebuyck to cut the lead to 3-1. Hellebuyck saw only five shots come his way in the opening frame.

Winnipeg continued to pile on the shots in the second, but it was the Blue Jackets who picked their spot. Hartnell tucked home his 12th of the year after some scrappy play in front of Hellebuyck, cutting the visitors' deficit to 3-2.

NOTES: The Blue Jackets placed G Sergei Bobrovsky on the injured reserve Thursday. He is expected to miss three weeks with a lower-body injury sustained Tuesday night. ... F David Clarkson returned to the Blue Jackets' lineup after missing the previous 16 games with a back injury. ... The Jets played their seventh back-to-back series of the season Thursday night. ... Jets rookie F Nik Ehlers, who was added to Denmark's preliminary roster for the World Junior Hockey Championships later this month, will stay in the NHL. ... The Jets and Blue Jackets met for the final time this season. Winnipeg scored three times in the first period and held on for a 3-2 win on Halloween in Columbus.