In Winnipeg, Michael Amadio scored at 3:40 of the second extra session on Saturday night to give the Vegas Golden Knights a 5-4 win over the Jets.
The Game 3 win gives the Golden Knights a 2-1 series lead.
“I think every kid dreams of scoring an OT winner in the playoffs,” Amadio said. “It is something that I will remember forever for sure. I kind of didn’t even see it go in. I just kind of put it on net and then I heard all the guys on the ice start screaming, and that’s when I knew.”
Game 4 is set for Winnipeg on Monday.
“It’s hard to win hockey games in the playoffs, so we’ll take them however we can get them,” Golden Knights captain Mark Stone said. “We want to close that game out for sure, right? It’s 4-1 going into the third, we want to close that game out, but they played five [on] defense all night. … We rolled four lines, we rolled three [defensive] pairs, and ultimately found a way.”
Laurent Brossoit made 30 saves. in the Vegas win.
Vegas had a 4-1 lead going into the third period, and the Jets rallied with three goals in the frame to get the game to overtime.
Nino Niederreiter n scored at 2:04 of the third to trim the deficit to 4-2 for the Jets.
“The first two periods we didn’t quite show it the way we wanted to,” Niederreiter said. “That third period, we knew we had to play to our identity to be successful, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Mark Scheifele hit for his first of the post season to get the Jets within one at 4-3.
Adam Lowry forced extra time when he scored with 22 seconds left on the game clock.
“To kind of enter the third where we were at and get the building rocking and have a chance to win in overtime, it’s a pretty big high emotionally,” Lowry said. “It was nice to get the building back and tie the game for the guys. It’s too bad we couldn’t finish.”
Chandler Stephenson and Jack Eichel (power play) scored in the first period to give the Golden Knights a 2-0 lead.
“We saw that they were playing five (defensemen). … We drew some penalties, got a couple big power-play goals and generated momentum that way,” Stone said.
Kyle Connor cut into the Vegas lead midway through the opening stanza for a 2-1 score.
Eichel scored a second power play goal in the middle frame for a 3-1 lead, and Keegan Kolesar scored to send the game to the third with the Golden Knights ahead, 4-1.
“Give them credit, they had a good push in the third,” Eichel said. “But coming in after the third before the first overtime, [we had] a lot of confidence in the room. We still felt confidence about ourselves.”
Connor Hellebuyck made 43 saves in the Jets loss.
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