Jets pull win from the fire

It wasn’t quite another Manitoba Miracle, but go figure that Cole Perfetti found a way to score another big, buzzer-beating goal for the Winnipeg Jets.

With their playoff hopes already hanging by a thread, a regulation loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night to kick off a season-long eight-game homestand would have all but buried them for good.

And it sure looked like that was about to happen as the clock ticked down and the home team was on the wrong end of 2-1 deficit.

Cue Perfetti, who clearly has a sense of occasion and a flair for the dramatic. The 24-year-old took a pass from Mark Scheifele, spun around and fired a perfect wrist shot that beat Blackhawks goaltender Spencer Knight with 38.6 seconds left in regulation.

Just like they drew it up, right?

“It was pretty close,” Perfetti said of the play coming off the offensive zone faceoff which assistant coach Davis Payne had mapped out on the whiteboard during a timeout.

“Nothing goes exactly to plan. We had a play in mind and it kind of worked. We had to improvise a little bit based on what they’re doing, but with the guys in the right places like that, then you make a hockey play from there. It was a good call by him.”

The crowd, which had essentially been lulled to sleep over the preceding two-plus hours, suddenly came alive. As did the Jets, who carried the momentum into overtime and snatched another crucial point when Scheifele beat Knight at 2:06 to end it on his team-leading 28th goal of the year.

“The guys in this room want to keep pushing and pushing and pushing and just see what happens,” Scheifele said of not giving up hope of an incredible surge over the final seven weeks of the regular season.

“We have a great group of guys in here. It’s fun to come to the rink and be with the guys in this room. We are just going to push each other until the end of the year and just see what happens. That’s all we can do, that’s all we can control. Just control the controllable.”

Winnipeg improves to 24-26-10, including 2-0-2 in the four games since the Olympic break. Chicago falls to 23-28-10.

“Every game, we’re fighting for our lives at this point,” said Perfetti, who has been one of Winnipeg’s hottest players lately and is now up to nine goals.

“No team is going to hand it over to us. There’s going to be games where we’re up, where we’re down. Tie games going late in the games and we’ve got to make sure that there is no quit. We weren’t able to crack it (until late). But whether we score in the first minute of the period or in the last minute, that fight has to be there throughout the whole time.”

Overtime woes

The Jets have left plenty of points on the table this season, particularly when games stretch beyond regulation. In fact, 10 of the last 11 to be settled after 60 minutes ended with a loss.

Arniel switched things up to start this one, putting Morgan Barron out to start the fourth period, along with captain Adam Lowry and shutdown defenceman Dylan DeMelo. The trio held their own against Chicago’s more offensively inclined skaters, led by Connor Bedard, and that set the stage for Scheifele and company to notch the winner a short time later.

Give credit to defenceman Dylan Samberg, who opened the scoring in the first period — his first goal of the year — then fed Scheifele for the winner.

“Well, at first I thought I was going to chase a breakaway. But obviously Samby made an incredible play, knocking it down and making a great pass to me. Then it was just a good shot,” said Scheifele.

Samberg doesn’t typically get a lot of reps in OT, but the Jets are without two key injured blue-liners in Josh Morrissey and Neal Pionk so some audibles are required.

“Obviously, things haven’t gone our way in overtime. We’ve fallen short quite a few times, but it’s three-on-three, so anything can happen,” said Perfetti.

“But it goes the other way tonight for us. Just having that belief in the group. We have that in one another and hopefully tonight was a step in the right direction for our overtime.”

Bucking another trend

Winnipeg managed to hush at least one other recent narrative on this night. The team has been terrible in third periods lately, and it actually looked like that could continue when Ryan Greene gave the visitors a 2-1 lead just 32 seconds into the final frame.

However, the Jets found another gear from that point on and were all over the Blackhawks, eventually getting rewarded for tilting the ice.

Consider this: Winnipeg mustered one high-danger chance through the first 40 minutes of play — then had eight in the third period alone. The Jets also fired 17 shots on goal in the third period after 13 combined through the first two.

“Just playing fast, playing direct, playing as a five-man unit,” Perfetti said of what changed.

“In the first two periods, we were kind of all on our own page. It wasn’t going our way and we wanted for it to just come easily, I feel like. And then we kind of started to play connected, play fast, play direct through the neutral zone and our own zone. Be less stubborn in their zone, get pucks behind their D and get on the forecheck.”

Chicago, which had four high-danger chances in the first two periods but one (on six shots) in the third, had no answer.

“There was a span there where all they could do was high flip it out and ice it,” said Perfetti.

“That’s the style we’ve got to play. Obviously, it’s not easy to play that way every single game, but when we do, you get the results like that.”

Key play

Perfetti’s game-tying goal was sorely needed by the struggling squad.

THREE STARS:

1. WPG C Mark Scheifele: 1 goal, 2 assists

2. CHI C Connor Bedard: 2 assists

3. WPG D Dylan Samberg: 1 goal, 1 assist

Extra, extra

The Jets rolled with the same lineup for a second straight game, with defenceman Ville Heinola as the only healthy scratch. Morrissey and Pionk, along with forwards Nino Niederreiter and Vlad Namestnikov, remain out with injuries.

A crowd of 13,929 took in the game, which is down from the season average of 14,269. Capacity at the downtown rink is 15,225.

Connor Hellebuyck stopped 18 of 20 shots he faced, while Knight turned aside 29 of 32 pucks.

The Jets went 0-for-2 on the power play, while the Blackhawks went 1-for-3.

The Jets honoured their four Olympians during the first TV timeout, and all were greeted with warm applause. Morrissey (Canada) and Niederreiter (Switzerland) had to take it in from the sidelines, while Hellebuyck and Kyle Connor were on the ice.

Winnipeg will get set to host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night.

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