Just when you think you’ve seen it all, the Winnipeg Jets find a new way to lose another hockey game.
The Jets let a two-goal lead slip away before falling in overtime to the Vegas Golden Knights Tuesday night, a 4-3 loss that extended Winnipeg’s losing streak to ten games – their longest since relocating to Winnipeg.
The Jets actually wasted two different third period leads. After scoring the first two goals of the game, the Golden Knights roared back to tie it up. The Jets took the lead again with only five minutes left, only for Vegas to score less than a minute later before winning it with just 13 seconds left in overtime.
Winnipeg has now lost their last five overtime contests, and they’ve also dropped their last 12 one-goal games.
“All the chances that we had and the looks that we had and I mean, this is just ground hog day,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “These things seem to be happening a lot recently, so, just got to stay with it. I know it’s hard to say, and hard to hear, but we got to find a way. We’re 12 seconds away from getting out of that one.”
Cole Perfetti, Luke Schenn and Kyle Connor scored the Jets goals in the loss, while Gabriel Vilardi registered a pair of assists. It was Perfetti’s first goal in 17 games while Schenn hadn’t scored since October of 2024.
Reilly Smith tied the game for Vegas late and Tomas Hertl scored the game winner in overtime, while Manitobans Mark Stone and Brett Howden had their other markers.
“We’re battling,” said Perfetti. “It’s just like unlucky bounces. We’re playing hard. We’re doing whatever it takes.
“We’ve had a quite a few of these now where it’s back-and-forth or we’re winning late and something happens. Just trying to stay even keel, just trying to play to the final buzzer. It’s gonna turn for us. It has to. It’s not going to go like this all year. I mean, we’re putting forth good efforts. Lots of our game to happy with, to be proud of, and we’re just not getting the results right now. It sucks.”
Overshadowing the loss was a very scary situation early in the hockey game. Jets defenceman Haydn Fleury had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher in the first period after crashing backwards into the boards. He was taken to hospital where he was fully alert with the use of his extremities.
“He’s at the hospital,” said Arniel. “He’ll be staying overnight. Obviously, he’s got a lot of tests to go through. He does have a broken nose so there’s a few different things that kinda happened off it. A little bit of everything – obviously slammed his back, hit his neck, hit his head, and then obviously his nose.”
The Jets’ special teams continue to sputter as they allowed a pair of power play goals while going 0-for-2 on the man advantage themselves.
Get daily National news
Things looked a little dicey right off the bat as Jonathan Toews took a tripping penalty just 16 seconds into the game but Winnipeg got the kill, and a few minutes later, Toews factored in on the game’s first goal.
Vilardi got the puck back to the point where Josh Morrissey was waiting for it. He fed Toews in the slot, who noticed that Perfetti was uncovered and cutting to the front of the net. Toews passed it to Perfetti, who outwaited Carter Hart before sliding the puck into the back of the net at the 5:16 mark.
It was only Perfetti’s third goal of the season and first since Nov. 29.
There was a concerning moment with just under seven minutes left in the period when Fleury went hard into the boards. He was on his back foot near the faceoff dot in his own end and passed the puck up the ice as Keegan Kolesar shoved him at full speed. The impact knocked Fleury off his feet, and he landed on his back before sliding hard into the boards, his head and upper back taking all the impact with the boards.
The whistle blew right away as medical personnel swarmed Fleury, being careful as they strapped him to a backboard and put him on a stretcher. After several minutes, he was wheeled across the ice as fans gave him an ovation, and players tapped their sticks.
This was Fleury’s first action since Dec. 19 and only his second game since Remembrance Day as he had been dealing with a concussion.
During the pause in action, Adam Lowry talked to Kolesar about dropping the gloves and off the ensuing faceoff, the two squared off with the Jets’ captain earning the takedown, much to the home crowd’s delight.
The Jets carried the 1-0 lead into the second period, though they were outshot 6-5 in the opening 20 minutes.
The second got off to a sluggish start, with neither side registering a shot on goal before Stone took a slashing penalty 5:31 into the period.
Winnipeg wasn’t able to generate much with the man advantage, though a scramble in front of Hart with seconds remaining led to the puck trickling just wide of the net.
The Jets doubled their lead at the 12:04 mark of the frame thanks to perhaps the most unlikely scoring option in the lineup (outside of Connor Hellebuyck).
After a battle for the puck in the Vegas end, it trickled back to the point where Schenn, playing in his 1,100th game, collected it. He paused for a moment before snapping a wrist shot on net that somehow eluded traffic and Hart, beating the keeper top corner for his first goal in 43 games as a Jet.
It was just his 45th career goal in 1,100 games and his first since Oct. 19, 2024 as a member of the Predators.
Vegas got their second power play look of the evening with 1:03 to go in the period when Dylan Samberg was called for high-sticking and it didn’t take long for the Golden Knights to cash in.
A shot on goal careened off of the skates of Schenn and slid right to Stone at the side of the net. The Winnipegger slid it home for his 13th of the season just 12 seconds after the power play began, making this the fifth straight game in which Stone has scored.
Vegas outshot the Jets 8-4 in the second for a two-period advantage of 14-9, but Winnipeg still held a 2-1 lead where it mattered after 40 minutes.
But just over eight minutes into the third, the Golden Knights drew level.
Dylan DeMelo had a chance to play the puck just inside his own blueline but got spun around before Kolesar got to the puck and took it into the corner. Hertl picked it up there and found Noah Hanifin by the faceoff dot for a one-timer that hit Hellebuyck in the mask.
The rebound came back to Hanifin and he sent a pass across to Howden in front that the Oakbank native deposited into the net to tie the game at the 8:13 mark.
Winnipeg finally registered their first shot on goal in the period with 9:59 to go, and with just over five minutes remaining, they regained the lead thanks to their top sniper.
After Golden Knights made a bit of a mess of a line change, Connor carried the puck into the Vegas end before missing the net badly from the slot. But Vilardi tracked down the loose puck along the boards and as Connor circled back to the slot, Vilardi gave him the puck and Connor made no mistake, whipping a shot past Hart for his 20th of the season.
But the lead didn’t last long. Only 59 seconds after Connor’s goal, Vegas struck back as Smith knocked home a rebound off a Brandon Saad shot.
Neither team found the back of the net again before the end of the third, which figured to favour the Jets as Vegas entered the night with a 4-12 record in games decided in overtime or a shootout this season.
After a slow start to OT, the Jets came close a couple times to ending the game with Samberg having the best chance, whiffing a shot wide from in close after Toews was denied from the slot.
With 50.4 seconds left, Samberg was sent to the box for tripping and Winnipeg almost got through it but with 12.8 seconds on the clock, Mitch Marner rocketed a one-timer from the point that Hertl tipped past Hellebuyck to end the game, prompting the reigning Hart Trophy winner to smash his stick in half on the goal post.
The loss matches the longest losing skid in franchise history, if you include the Atlanta days, as the Thrashers had a ten-game skid during their inaugural season. The original 1.0 Jets also had a pair of ten game losing streaks in 1980 and 1994.
Winnipeg will get another chance to snap the skid when they host the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night.
Comments