The Winnipeg Jets just can’t seem to beat the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Jets surrendered a late goal before losing in overtime as the Golden Knights pulled out a 3-2 victory at the Canada Life Centre on Thursday.
The Jets jumped into the lead with nine minutes left, but took back-to-back penalties in the final three minutes. Vegas scored on the 5-on-3 before winning it in the extra frame for the Jets first overtime loss of the season.
Dylan DeMelo was assessed a questionable tripping penalty to put the Jets two men down.
“I’ve seen guys do a lot worse and not get a call,” DeMelo said. “So that’s a tough pill to swallow. We all know at the end of games or overtime it’s got to be pretty egregious to be a penalty. He deemed it so.”
The Jets have now lost eight straight regular season meetings against Vegas.
Winnipeg had a one-goal lead going to the third but still didn’t like their first two periods. It took the Jets more than 13 minutes to record their first shot on goal in the second and they registered only 10 shots in the first 40 minutes.
“It certainly was not even close to our best game in the first two periods,” said defenceman Josh Morrissey. “I did think we got to our game a little bit better in the third, but they probably, through the course of their first two periods, the hockey gods probably earned them those power plays at the end of the game when we didn’t have our best in the first two.”
Morrissey and Nikita Chibrikov scored the goals for Winnipeg.
It was the first time all season the Jets lost a game when leading after the first or second period. They entered the night 10-0 when leading after 20 minutes and 15-0 when up after two periods.
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“I just thought when we did have opportunities when it went the other way, I didn’t think we attacked like they attack,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “The shot attempts I think were almost double in this game.”
The game winning goal in overtime came after the Jets got their signals crossed near their bench and made a bad line change.
“Really the whole overtime we had the puck, which we like to do, and you like to have,” Arniel said. “It’d be nice if we got a couple more attempts at the goaltender, but we made probably a bad decision with the puck, and we were kinda on a line change and we got caught.”
It was the Knights fourth straight victory as Vegas was playing for the first time in six days.
Mark Scheifele’s franchise record home point streak ended at 13 games.
Chibrikov kept up the torrid pace to start his NHL career, potting his third goal in as many career games at the 9:27 mark of the first.
Cole Perfetti carried the puck into the Vegas end off the rush, sending it to Vladislav Namestnikov on the right wing. He fired a low shot on goal that was kicked away by the pad of Adin Hill right to the stick of Chibrikov, who blasted it home to open the scoring.
It was one of just four shots the Jets got on goal in the opening 20 minutes as Winnipeg was under duress for much of the period. Connor Hellebuyck made sure the Jets held onto the 1-0 lead as he turned aside 12 shots in the frame.
Just over two minutes into the second, Neal Pionk was called for hooking Pavel Dorofeyev but he may have saved a goal in the process as it prevented the Vegas winger from getting a stick on a rebound that could have been knocked into an open net. Winnipeg killed off the power play.
The game stayed 1-0 as the period rolled along with neither team getting much on goal through the first half of the frame: shots were 3-0 Vegas at the second media timeout while Winnipeg didn’t register a shot on goal until a Pionk wrist shot from the point with 6:59 left in the frame. The Jets finished the period with six shots to Vegas’ ten but the score remained 1-0.
Right at the end of the period, the Jets were called for sending the puck out of play from their own end, giving Vegas 1:52 of power play time to start the third but just 20 seconds into the period, Jack Eichel was called for hooking, nullifying the man advantage.
Hellebuyck could only hold down the fort for so long before Vegas finally got on the board. After the Jets whiffed on multiple chances to clear the puck, Brandon’s Keegan Kolesar fired a shot from the slot that beat Hellebuyck through a screen to make it 1-1 at the 4:34 mark of the third.
But Winnipeg wrestled the lead back with 9:05 to go. Mark Scheifele carried the puck into the Vegas end at the end of a shift and offered a fairly ineffective drop pass that Alex Iafallo had to work hard to get to before Vegas did. He knocked it back to the point where DeMelo sent a cross-ice pass to Morrissey, who stepped in and blasted a shot that took the slightest of deflections off the stick of Zach Whitecloud and over the shoulder of Hill.
With 2:40 to go, Gabriel Vilardi was called for tripping and just 13 seconds later, DeMelo was sent off for tripping as well, giving Vegas a fantastic opportunity to level the score and with 1:49 remaining, Victor Olofsson finished off a great passing play to tie the game.
Olofsson had a glorious look to add another with 30 seconds left but Haydn Fleury deflected his point-blank shot over the glass, sending the game to overtime.
Winnipeg had possession of the puck for the bulk of OT, though they managed just one shot on net before a poorly executed line change doomed them.
With the puck near the Winnipeg bench, Nino Niederreiter sent it back to Fleury in his own end to allow Niederreiter and Namestnikov to change. Ivan Barbashev put some pressure on Fleury, who sent it softly back toward the Winnipeg bench but Shea Theodore jumped up to snatch it away, creating a 2-on-1 with Barbashev who finished off a pass from Theodore to end the game.
Hellebuyck stopped 33 shots in the loss, Winnipeg’s first in five games this season that required extra time to resolve. Hill had to make just 18 saves for the win, Vegas’ 12th in their last 13 meetings with Winnipeg if you include their playoff battle in 2023.
The Jets will wrap up a four-game homestand Saturday evening against Montreal. The puck drops just after 6 p.m. with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB starting at 4 p.m.
