After falling behind 0-1 in the last game of the night, the Calgary Flames rallied with two power play goals and a shorthanded marker to wrest control of the game from the Winnipeg Jets en route to a 4-1 win.
Cam Talbot made 17 saves to get the win.
“We didn’t play very well,” Winnipeg captain Blake Wheeler said. “We can play a lot better than that. That’s a positive. We come out and play a brand of hockey that is suited to us and clean up our special teams a little bit. They scored twice on the power play and once shorthanded. So do a little bit better job on our special teams and build a bit more simplicity into our game 5-on-5, and that’s it. It’s one game.”
Andrew Copp staked the Jets to the early lead with Winnipeg’s only goal of the game.
Johnny Gaudreau got the rally started with a power play goal.
“A lot of great play from a lot of great players,” Gaudreau said. “I was really happy with our team effort tonight. It was a really good, complete game from power play to penalty kill to goaltending to 5-on-5. I thought we did a great job tonight.”
Tobias Rieder potted a shorthanded breakaway and Mikael Backlund added the second power play goal to give the Flames a 3-1 lead.
“I just saw the hard rim coming and they were trying to hold it into the blue line, and it squirted out to my feet,” Rieder said. “I had lots of room to skate. I was trying to settle the puck down. It was rolling for a long time. I went to my backhand. Luckily, it went in.”
Andrew Mangiapane, closed out the scoring with an empty netter late in the third period.
[WATCH: All Jets vs. Flames highlights]
Connor Hellebuyck made 30 saves in the losing effort.
The Jets lost both Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine to injuries.
“I think that’s been our calling card all year, being able to handle adversity right from the first day of training camp,” Copp said. “If you even want to go back into the [offseason] a little bit, we’ve handled it as well as we can all year in terms of on-ice performance. But we’ve handled it mentally even better, I think. It’s going to be another hurdle for us, but like I said, we’ve been doing it all year.”
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