There’s something about a trip to the Shark Tank that makes life difficult for the Winnipeg Jets.
It wasn’t easy but the Jets got a late tally from captain Adam Lowry to propel them past the pesky Sharks 4-3 in San Jose Tuesday night.
The Jets tied the game on the power play with a little over eight minutes remaining, and Lowry tipped in a point shot for the game winner with just 1:13 left to give the Jets back-to-back wins.
Kyle Connor notched a pair of markers for Winnipeg for his third multi-goal game of the campaign. Mark Scheifele also scored and had a three point effort, while Gabriel Vilardi recorded three assists in the win. The top line was buzzing for most of the night.
“It was a great play on KC’s first goal,” said Lowry. “He could have had four or five. He was all over it. They generated some momentum. It seemed like in the first two periods they were our consistent line that had some O-zone pressure. The rest of us struggled to kinda establish our forecheck and get in the zone consistently.”
The Jets were outshot in both the first two periods. It took them more than seven minutes to record their first shot of the period in the middle frame, but they took the game over in the final 10 minutes.
“We were trying to clog up the middle as much as we could,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “Our power play stepped up big time and they weren’t going away. And then that third period there, we got back to kinda doing some things.
“I liked the way we stayed in the game til the very end and that was a big goal with about a minute and what 15 seconds left.”
The Jets were a perfect 2-for-2 on the power play and they’re now 5-1-1 in their last seven games.
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Connor scored his 18th and 19th goals of the season, including his 262nd as a Jet to tie Blake Wheeler for the third most goals in franchise history.
“That’s obviously a pretty special player that I look up to,” said Connor. “I was obviously lucky enough to get to play with him as well, learned a lot from him. And yeah, it’s a pretty cool milestone for sure.”
Neal Pionk appeared in his 500th career NHL game.
The Sharks controlled play to start the night, aided in part by an unsuccessful power play. They had 18 shot attempts to just four for the Jets in the first 12 minutes, one of which felled rookie Nikita Chibrikov and forced him to leave the game for the remainder of the period.
But with 7:42 to go in the first, it was the Jets who got on the board first thanks to their top line.
A lead pass from Dylan DeMelo was chipped into the San Jose zone by Vilardi, resulting in a 2-on-1 for Scheifele and Connor. Scheifele collected the puck and held onto it as he skated through the faceoff circle before sending a pass in front to Connor, who deked past a helpless Alexandar Georgiev to open the scoring with his 18th of the season.
San Jose wound up outshooting the Jets 10-9 in the first but Winnipeg certainly played better after the Connor goal.
It didn’t take long in the second for the Sharks to draw level. After Macklin Celebrini won a puck battle in the corner, he got the puck to Nikolai Kovalenko, who skated behind the Winnipeg net before sending the puck to a wide open Tyler Toffoli in front. The one-time Jet buried it past Connor Hellebuyck to make it 1-1 just 1:52 into the period.
The Sharks continued to control the bulk of play as the period rolled along before Lowry drew a hooking call, sending Winnipeg’s red-hot power play to work and they made no mistake. The top unit exhibited some great puck movement as Vilardi in the bumper spot, sent it low to Cole Perfetti, who whipped a perfect seam pass to Scheifele for a one-timer that beat Georgiev to make it 2-1 Jets.
With just under four minutes to go in the period, Colin Miller went to the box and this time it was San Jose’s turn to cash in with the man advantage. Celebrini sent a no-look backhand on goal from the left faceoff dot and it skimmed along the ice and through the legs of a screened Hellebuyck to tie the game heading to the third.
San Jose grabbed their first lead of the game at the 4:44 mark of the third. With Pionk caught trying to get back to the blue line after a pinch in the Sharks’ zone, Jake Walman chipped the puck to centre where Fabian Zetterlund picked it up to create an eventual 3-on-1. He held onto it as he entered the Winnipeg end, drifted to the slot and wired a wicked wrister over the shoulder of Hellebuyck to make it 3-2 Sharks.
Just past the midway point of the third, the Jets earned their second power play of the night when Mason Appleton was tripped in San Jose’s end and once again, Winnipeg’s top unit made the Sharks pay.
A little over a minute into the power play chance, a cross-ice pass from Vilardi gave Connor time and space to walk in from the right faceoff dot and rip a hard wrist shot past Georgiev to tie the game at the 11:56 mark.
The Sharks were sent back to the power play with 6:20 left when Nino Niederreiter was called for an illegal check to the head but Winnipeg managed to kill it off.
Winnipeg ramped up the pressure as the period wound down, leading to the go-ahead goal with just 1:13 to go. A point shot from DeMelo was just barely tipped by Lowry but it was enough to fool Georgiev and put the Jets ahead for good as the Sharks couldn’t generate much with the goalie pulled.
Hellebuyck made 32 saves to earn the win and keep the Jets in first place in the NHL standings.
Winnipeg is right back at it Wednesday night, taking on the Ducks in Anaheim at 9 p.m. Pregame coverage on 680 CJOB begins at 7 p.m.
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