In Winnipeg Monday night, the visiting St Louis Blues held 2-0 and 3-1 leads over the Jets but ended up losing in extra time, 5-4.
Bryan Little forced the overtime session when he scored with less than two minutes left in regulation to get the Jets even at 4-4.
Mark Scheifele struck for two goals and four points on the night.
“That definitely wasn’t how we drew it up,” Scheifele said. “We battled the puck early in that game. That third period, we pretty much said, ‘[Forget] it. Let’s have fun and battle and work for each other here.’ It turned out. It worked for us.”
Jacob Trouba picked up the game-winner midway through the overtime.
Ben Chiarot also scored for the Jets; his goal narrowed the deficit to 3-2.
“We just got rolling, we got moving,” Chiarot said. “At the beginning, they caught us kind of flat-footed and they were the hungrier team. I know, in the third period, we came out and we knew we wanted to have one of our best periods of the year, and we did that. We came out playing quick and pretty fast, and we’re a tough team to handle when we do that.”
Ryan O’Reilly scored once and had three points on the night and Vince Dunn added a goal.
“We talked about it before the game, about them throwing pucks to the net and just trying to push them out of the way, and they scored two, three goals like that,” Blues forward Pat Maroon said.
Connor Hellebuyck made 30 saves as the Jets improved to 6-2-1.
The Blues outplayed Winnipeg for most of the first 40 minutes of play but surrendered the game in the third when the Jets struck for three goals. The second intermission was used to try to find a spark in the Jets locker room.
“I think it’s just about trying to find a way to unshackle our group. It just seems like we’re carrying a lot of weight, carrying a lot of expectation, and it’s inhibiting us from kind of playing our game,” Jets’ Blake Wheeler said of the intermission.
David Perron and Colton Parayko also scored for St Louis.
“We won the first period, we won the second period, and we lost the third period badly,” St. Louis head coach Mike Yeo said. “We lost the hockey game. We just didn’t finish it off.”
[WATCH: All Blues vs. Jets highlights]
Jake Allen made 31 saves in the loss.
“I think we’re scared to lose games right now,” Allen said. “We’re behind in the standings, we know that. We know that each point’s crucial, and we’re playing in the third period like we’re scared to lose a game.”
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