The Winnipeg Jets shook off a two-goal deficit in the third period and forced extra time before defeating the visiting Washington Capitals, 4-3 Tuesday night.
Mark Scheifele tied the game on a shorthanded situation with just 15 seconds left in regulation to get the teams to overtime.
“It feels awesome,” Scheifele said. “It just shows that we battled so hard. We battled right to the end, that was top to bottom, first line to fourth line. It was an awesome feeling.”
Tyler Myers struck midway through the extra session to complete the rally.
“When you take a look at tonight, it’s a huge team win,” Myers said. “To come from behind like that late and then get the two points in overtime, it was a huge character win for us.”
Bryan Little started the rally for the Jets when he cut the deficit to 3-2 midway through the third period.
Connor Hellebuyck made 24 saves for the win as the Jets improved to 33-15-9 and kept pace with the Nashville Predators who have a two-point lead over the Jets.
Nicklas Backstrom, Andre Burakovsky and John Carlson had the Caps’ goals.
“It’s really just a mentality,” the Caps’ T.J. Oshie said. “There’s no X’s and O’s, I don’t think, that’s going to say when you get out on the ice with the lead your mentality has to be [that], no matter what, they’re not getting a scoring chance. No matter what, this puck’s getting out or this guy’s not winning this battle.
“Hard lesson we learned tonight. Hopefully we can learn from it.”
On the other side, Winnipeg is trying not to get ahead of itself with the current record this late in the season.
“I just think that we’ve got to pump the brakes here a little bit. We’re talking Stanley Cup contender, we haven’t even made the playoffs,” the Jets’ Blake Wheeler said after the dramatic win. “We’re building this up a bit bigger than it is. We’re just trying to get better every single game. … I think the city, the media, we should all be excited about our team and where we’re at right now, but it’s going to be tough, we’re in a dogfight to make the playoffs right now. At no point should we expect to go out and blow out a team like the Washington Capitals. It was an even-fought hockey game. We were able to gut one out.”
[WATCH:Â All Capitals vs. Jets highlights]
“A 3-1 lead and a goal lead with 1:17 on the power play … we just got a little arrogant, in a way, and tried to make fancy plays. It burned us. We deserved that,” Capitals goalie Braden Holtby said.
Holtby made 40 in the loss.
Washington dropped 32-17-7 with the loss.
“Well, you know, it’s a hard lesson to learn. I thought in this building, this is a pretty hostile building. For 54 minutes we played a really good road game. Obviously, they scored the second goal and the crowd got into it and we got on our heels a little bit,” Caps head coach Barry Trotz said his team gave up the lead late.
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