Scheifele scores late winner over Lightning

WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg Jets had more questions to answer on Sunday night. Could they build on back-to-back victories against a high-flying Tampa Bay Lightning team? And could they continue to make strides on special teams, an area that has been a significant challenge throughout their nine-game winless streak? The Jets delivered another opportunity to show that their recent progress was no fluke.

Well, the Jets made it three consecutive wins in dramatic fashion on Sunday night, as Mark Scheifele scored a buzzer-beating winner to cap a wild 4-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Winnipeg jumped out to a 3-0 lead before watching the Lightning battle all the way back to tie the game, setting the stage for Scheifele’s late heroics.

"We’ve got a lot of great guys on this team, guys with a lot of heart and a lot of skill. You know, it’s fun," said Scheifele.

"We definitely didn’t draw it up that way, but unbelievable effort by the guys. They don’t ask how. They just ask how many wins. We’ll put that one in the chamber and not look at it again.”

The Jets also continued to make strides on special teams, scoring three times on the power play while killing off all four Tampa Bay opportunities.

Brayden Yager scored his first NHL goal, Cole Perfetti and and Morgan Barron also scored, Viggo Björck recorded his first career multi-point game with two assists and Stuart Skinner made 18 saves. 

The first period ended scoreless, thanks in large part to a strong effort from the Winnipeg penalty kill. The Jets successfully neutralized both Tampa Bay power-play opportunities without allowing a single shot on goal. That was a significant accomplishment against a Lightning power play that had been clicking at a 32.3 per cent rate since Oct. 17, the sixth-best mark in the NHL entering Sunday’s game.

The Jets broke the scoreless deadlock early in the second period with the man advantage. Perfetti made no mistake, one-timing a beautiful feed from Mark Scheifele over Andrei Vasilevskiy’s shoulder for his seventh goal of the season at 1:53.

After successfully killing off another Tampa Bay power play, Winnipeg doubled its lead at 12:38. Neal Pionk delivered a terrific cross-ice pass to Barron, who unleashed a one-timer past Vasilevskiy for his third goal of the season and Winnipeg led by two after 40 minutes.

In the third period, Brayden Yager scored his first career NHL goal on the power play after drawing a double-minor penalty when he was high-sticked by Pontus Holmberg. Yager made Tampa Bay pay, firing home a shot off a beautiful setup from Viggo Björck at 8:10 to give the Jets a 3-0 lead. The last Jets player to net their first career goal on the power play was Patrik Laine (Oct. 13, 2016).

“That was really cool. Mom, Dad and Grandpa were here, so it was pretty cool to do it in front of them," said Yager. 

"Just a great play by Viggo there that touched over to me and had a pretty wide-open net. Unbelievable feeling. Dream come true.”

The Lightning spoiled Skinner’s shutout bid just over two minutes later, as Brandon Hagel finally found a way past the Jets netminder at 10:22.

Tampa Bay carried that momentum forward, with Holmberg scoring twice in a span of just 26 seconds to tie the game at three. Holmberg now has five goals against the Jets in the two meetings between the teams this season.

"That’s a good hockey team right there, they don’t quit even on a back to back being down three," said Scheifele.

"They kept making plays and doing good things. We’re just happy we got the win.”

Back-to-back Tampa Bay penalties gave the Jets a two-man advantage, setting the stage for a dramatic finish. With the clock winding down, Perfetti found Scheifele, who buried the game-winner with just one second remaining at 19:59 to send the crowd into a frenzy. It was Scheifele’s 97th career power-play goal, tying Paul MacLean for the third-most in franchise history.

"This has been a 16-game wave. It started before we got to training camp and it’s been kind of up and down and obviously we were down for a long stretch there, but now we’re back up again, feeling good," said head coach Scott Arniel.

"I still have to throw this on our leadership. Our guys in our room have done a really good job of kind of keeping the noise away."

The Jets will close out this homestand on Tuesday night when they welcome the New Jersey Devils to town.