Beginning the campaign without their captain and one of their top defenders, the Winnipeg Jets comeback attempt fell a wee bit short in their season opener Thursday night against the Dallas Stars.
The Jets were unable to overcome a four-goal third period deficit, falling 5-4 to snap a run of seven straight season-opening wins.
The Jets surrendered three goals in the span of less than three minutes to start the final frame to fall behind by four. Winnipeg scored three unanswered goals in the final 10 minutes as Kyle Connor recorded a hat trick, but the Stars just hung on for a one-goal win in front of a sellout crowd at the Canada Life Centre.
“For 50 minutes we weren’t a very good hockey team,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “Our structure and our detail in all three areas wasn’t very good. It’s too good of a hockey team to make those kinds of mistakes. The shorthanded goal sparked us and kinda got a little bit more urgency into us, won a few more battles, and did a little bit more of the things we needed to do for the first 50 minutes.”
Jonathan Toews made his Jets debut in his first NHL game in two and a half years. After being introduced to a roar from his hometown crowd, Toews took a slashing penalty, had one shot on goal and went 7-for-15 at the faceoff dot in just over 18 minutes of ice time.
“It was close, but a lot of room for improvement,” said Toews. “A lot of little things I can do better. Definitely trying to start the play with the puck off the faceoffs and didn’t really get that going for my line out there. But other than that, there was some situations where the three of us created and had some chances.”
“He’s like a lot of our group – it took a while to get going sorta early on,” Arniel said. “I thought I saw changes in his game in that second period. He started to have the puck a little bit more, had some looks, their line started to do some things, but at the end of the day, our whole group, it’s a tough one cause our whole group wasn’t good.”
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Morgan Barron notched the only other goal for the Jets. Connor had his seventh career hat trick to extend his NHL record by scoring a goal in the season opener for the eight straight year. But Connor had no answer as to why he’s been so hot in the first game of the season.
“I don’t know,” said Connor. “I wish I could tell you, but you probably have a better answer than me. I don’t know.”
The night began with the unveiling of the Central Division and Presidents’ Trophy banners from last season, plus the introduction of the 2025-26 team.
The crowd cheered hard for every player but nobody got a bigger reaction than Toews. As the Winnipegger emerged from the tunnel, the building erupted and gave him an ovation that lasted nearly a minute.
The good opening night vibes were soured when Dallas opened the scoring just 3:15 into the game.
Sam Steel held the puck along the wall in the Winnipeg end and wasn’t pressured, giving him time to wait until Roope Hintz opened up on the opposite side of the zone. Hintz’ shot was denied but Mikko Rantanen, who terrorized the Jets in last year’s post-season, knocked the rebound into an empty net to draw first blood.
Winnipeg’s top line evened the score just over three minutes later. Gabriel Vilardi carried the puck into the Dallas end and patiently waited for his linemates to get into a more dangerous position. He passed the puck down low to Mark Scheifele, who fed Connor with a cross-ice pass near the side of the crease. Connor initially lost control of the puck but was able to regain control and put it past an out-of-position Jake Oettinger.
Before the period was through, the Stars took the lead back, not long after killing off the first penalty of the game. Rantanen took the puck along the wall in the Winnipeg end, warding off the check of Cole Koepke. Nobody spotted Nils Lundkvist drifting into the slot, and he took a pass from Rantanen before wiring a shot past Connor Hellebuyck.
Dallas took the 2-1 lead into the second as well as a 9-7 edge in shots on goal.
Neither team scored in the middle frame, with Dallas outshooting Winnipeg 17-7 in the second, though both sides had ample special teams opportunities. Winnipeg whiffed on a pair of power play chances while Dallas had a 5-on-4 and a 4-on-3 go by the wayside before getting an extended 5-on-3 late in the period.
They did not score before the second period horn but still had 56 seconds to try and score with the two-man advantage in the third. While they couldn’t score with two men in the box, they managed to capitalize before the second penalty expired, thanks in part to a penalty killer losing his stick.
The puck found its way to Jason Robertson in front and while he was denied on his first shot, he banged home the rebound to make it 3-1 only 61 seconds into the third.
Dallas inflicted more pain upon Jets fans just 34 seconds later when Matt Duchene made a nice play to create time for himself in the Winnipeg end before sliding the puck to a wide-open Tyler Seguin, who guided it into a yawning cage to make it 4-1 Stars.
The Stars kept pouring it on as Wyatt Johnston got in on the fun at the 3:23 mark, spinning and firing a shot from the slot that eluded a partially screened Hellebuyck to make it 5-1.
Barron finally gave the home fans something to cheer about when he got loose on a shorthanded breakaway and made a nice move to beat Oettinger with 10:07 left in the third.
With the Jets still on that same penalty kill, Connor tracked down a bank pass from Scheifele and whipped a shot from the wing that was stopped by Oettinger but Connor put the rebound in to make it 5-3 with 8:51 to go, injecting some real life into the building.
Winnipeg rode that energy as they tried to continue their comeback and with 3:03 left, Connor took a pass from Scheifele at the Dallas blueline, skated into the slot and fired a shot past Oettinger to make it 5-4 as hats flooded the ice.
The Jets caught a break when the Stars were called for putting the puck out of play from their own end, even though on replay it appeared that the puck last touched the stick of Vladislav Namestnikov.
But Winnipeg couldn’t score on the man advantage and failed to equalize before the final horn sounded.
Hellebuyck was saddled with the loss, making 32 saves in defeat.
The Jets will return to the ice Saturday when they host the L.A. Kings at 12:30 p.m. Pregame coverage on 680 CJOB begins at 10 a.m.
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