Kyle Connor scored the tie-breaking goal with 1:36 remaining to help the Winnipeg Jets rally for a 5-3 win against the visiting St. Louis Blues in Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference series Saturday evening.
Connor scored on a one-timer from the bottom of the right circle to give the Jets a 4-3 lead. Adam Lowry sealed it with an empty-net goal with 53 seconds left.
“Once we settled in, the reads got sharp,” Lowry said. “The tracking was really good, our D’s gaps were great.”
Connor and Mark Scheifele each had a goal and two assists, Jaret Anderson-Dolan and Alex Iafallo also scored, Josh Morrissey had two assists and Connor Hellebuyck made 14 saves for the Jets, who won the Presidents’ Trophy for the best record in the NHL during the regular season.
Robert Thomas, Oskar Sundqvist and Jordan Kyrou scored, Justin Faulk had two assists, and Jordan Binnington made 21 saves for St. Louis, which went 13-2-1 over the final month of the regular season to earn the second wild card from the Western Conference.
“We played a hard game,” Binnington said. “A lot of good things to take away from this game, for sure.”
The Blues took a 3-2 lead into the third period before the Jets tied it at 3 at 9:18.
Scheifele passed the puck from below the goal line to Iafallo at the side of the crease and he slid the puck into the far side of the net.
“That was a heck of a play by (Scheifele) and (Iafallo) going into the dirty areas to get us back into the game,” Lowry said. “The building erupted and I feel like we seized that momentum.”
Thomas gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 9:31 of the first period when he scored with a wrist shot from the left circle while on a power play.
Winnipeg was on a power play when Scheifele received a pass just about the goal line and to the side of the net. He tried to pass to Cole Perfetti on the opposite side, but the puck went off the stick blade of St. Louis defenseman Ryan Suter and into his own net to tie it at 1 at 13:38.
The Jets took the lead 1:24 later when Anderson-Dolan deflected a point shot into the net to make it 2-1 at 15:02.
St. Louis tied it at 2 at 18:10 of the first when a blocked shot went into the slot and Sundqvist shot the loose puck over Hellebuyck’s left shoulder and into the top of the net.
St. Louis scored on its second power play when Kyrou hit the net from just above the right circle for a 3-2 lead at 1:13 of the second period — but the Blues did not score again.
“It’s a long series,” Binnington said. “Take it one game at a time. We’ve got a lot of belief in this room.”
–Field Level Media
