It was looking like the Winnipeg Jets were going to lose again on the road.
But in the blink of an eye, the Jets flipped a late deficit into a 4-3 win in regulation, the team’s third consecutive victory without Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler.
Trailing 3-2 with just 80 seconds left, Nikolaj Ehlers scored his first of the season, sniping one past John Gibson from a tough angle near the goal-line.
Just 19 seconds later off of an icing, the Jets won the faceoff, the puck found its way to the stick of Ehlers whose shot deflected past Gibson for the winner. The goal was originally credited to Paul Stastny but it was given to Ehlers after the game.
“Crazy,” Ehlers said. “It just shows that we don’t quit in that room. We keep going. We came back and we came back, so that’s very exciting for us.”
“Kinda stole two points today,” said Andrew Copp. “We definitely didn’t play our best game by any means, but a hallmark of a good team is kinda being able to grind through those nights and find a way to win.”
After the thrilling comeback victory, the Jets now have at least a point in four consecutive games.
“Oh my god, you’d never be able to draw it up like that,” said Connor Hellebuyck. “That’s the NHL. You got to play a full 60 (minutes).
“A weird way to draw it up, but an NHL win is an NHL win.”
Ehlers snapped out of his scoring slump with his first two goals of the season, and he also added an assist for a three point night.
“When you don’t score, you try and find ways to score,” said Ehlers. “I think that is part of my job to contribute in that way. But I don’t think I played bad in the games before that, it just wasn’t going in.”
Andrew Copp and Evgeny Svechnikov had the other markers in the win.
With one assist, Pierre-Luc Dubois extended his point streak to five games, while Copp now has four goals in his last five contests, and Stastny is riding a four-game point streak.
It was the Jets first road win of the season after two defeats and an overtime loss in their first three away games.
“I thought we played a pretty darn good game in here game one and didn’t come out with the win,” said head coach Paul Maurice. “I think they were better than we were overall here tonight, and we got the win, so it evens out.”
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Winnipeg opened the scoring just over two minutes into the second period when Evgeny Svechnikov scored his first as a Jet, set up by a great zone entry by Kyle Connor and a nice feed from Pierre-Luc Dubois.
But just over three minutes later, Sonny Milano equalled the score for the Ducks, playing against Winnipeg for the third and final time this season.
Early in the third Josh Manson’s point shot found its way past a screened Connor Hellebuyck to give Anaheim the lead.
It was short-lived, however, as Copp would finish off a gorgeous tic-tac-toe play with Ehlers and Stastny for the equalizer.
With just under seven minutes left, Dubois turned the puck over below his own goal-line right to Milano, who found Trevor Zegras alone in the slot for the go-ahead goal.
It looked like it might be enough but then Ehlers scored his two late goals, the first with Hellebuyck pulled, and the Jets improve to 3-2-1 on the season. Anaheim falls to 2-4-1.
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Hellebuyck stopped 32 shots in the win in his sixth straight start to begin the season
“Anytime you get beat late in the third, it sucks no matter how it goes in.” said Hellebuyck. “To get that result I wanted after that – really puts some ease in my mind.”
Gibson made 21 saves in the loss.
It’s also the first time this season that the Jets did not allow a power play goal, killing off all three penalties they took on the night.
The Jets are back in action Thursday night as they face the Kings in Los Angeles at 9:30 p.m.
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