ANAHEIM, Cali – I was a magical night for Ducks and Jets fans as they saw fan favorite, Teemu Selanne, get his number “8” jersey raised to the rafters. It was only fitting this game went to a shootout and a Finnish player scored the winner.
Sami Vatanen broke the hearts of the Winnipeg Jets as he scored the winner as it took six shooters per team to end this one a 5-4 win for the Anaheim Ducks.
“It felt unbelievable,” Vatanen said. “I have to say I was honored that I had the chance to do that thing. I can say to my grandsons someday that I made the game-winning goal on Teemu’s night.”
Ondrej Pavelec was back between the pipes for the Jets and he was the main reason they got a point as he stopped 39 of 43 Ducks shots, including a couple of point blank stops off Ryan Kesler and Corey Perry. Pavelec falls to 10-10-6 on the year.
“It was a great night; at the end of the day we pulled through,” Ducks forward Andrew Cogliano said. “It was a pretty special night to be a part of. He has been a legend, and he has been a guy that I’ve looked up to, and a lot of guys in this room have. So, it was a good finish, and I think it was a fitting finish.”
Ducks goalie Frederik Andersen stopped 28 of 32 shots and improved his record to 23-6-5 on the season.
Winnipeg got goals from Evander Kane his 7th, Zach Bogosian his 2nd, Mark Scheifele his 7th, Andrew Ladd his 16th.
Anaheim got goals from Rickard Rakell his 2nd and 3rd of the season, Tim Jackman his 3rd, Kyle Palmieri his 7th.
“It feels good, but it’s only one game too,” said Rakell, who had one goal in his first 53 NHL games. “[I’ve] hit so many posts. I’ve been pretty unlucky, so it feels great.”
The Jets have seen a common trend lately giving up leads, as they squandered a three-goal lead last night against LA, and again Sunday they gave up a two-goal lead in the third. These lost points are going to be huge at the end of the season. Although they did manage 3 of 4 points on this back to back trip they also gave away 2 big points.
“It hurts because you had a lead,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said. “Other than that, we battled really hard. Last night’s game was a physical affair. And there was a lot of hitting in that 65 minutes. That takes its toll. So I liked the way we came out. We had good jump. It wasn’t easy to fire up after a real classy ceremony that they had here. I’m disappointed with the loss, but not with the team.”
After sitting and watching the Jersey retirement ceremony for over an hour the Jets did come out with a lot of jump as they had a 3-1 lead after one.
The Ducks are one of the teams that match the Jets speed and physical play as this game was a hard hitting affair with lots of speed. The Jets did hold down a 4-2 lead after two periods and gave up a late tying goal in the third.
The power play was 0-6 and this was costly as they had a two-man advantage at the end of the second and starting in the third period that they didn’t get anything and this was a real momentum swing for the Ducks.
The Jets will head home for a quick game vs Florida before heading back out on the road again.
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