Jets lose to Avalanche in OT, get point to gain ground in wild card race

WINNIPEG -- Cale Makar scored a power-play goal 2:42 into overtime to give the Colorado Avalanche a 5-4 win against the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre on Friday.

It was the fourth straight loss for Winnipeg, which trails the idle Dallas Stars by seven points for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
"The desperation level, and battling every night, no matter what the situation is for us, I thought we did that for a lot of this game," Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey said. "You're fighting to try to tie it up and stay alive in the game. You obviously need everybody battling who's out there, and fortunately we had some good plays and won some key battles."
Nikolaj Ehlers and Mark Scheifele each had two goals and an assist, and Connor Hellebuyck made 32 saves for the Jets (33-28-11), who last won March 30, 3-2 in a shootout at the Buffalo Sabres.
"That's exactly how we want to play," Winnipeg coach Dave Lowry said. "That's exactly how we're going to have to play with this team moving forward. We did a lot of really good things. We defended hard. We kept a very good team, for the most part, on the outside."

Scheifele cut the lead to 4-3 at 16:25 of the third period with a wrist shot from the right face-off dot on the rush. Ehlers then tied it 4-4 at 19:44, scoring a power-play goal on a rebound from a Morrissey point shot.
"At that point you've just got to shoot everything," Ehlers said. "With the traffic that we had in the front of the net, I was lucky enough to get that bounce and put it in the net."
Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Andre Burakovsky each had a goal and an assist, and Pavel Francouz made 39 saves for the Avalanche (51-14-6), who have won five straight.
"I thought [Francouz] played well," Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. "I mean, he hasn't played a lot of hockey for us here so it can be difficult getting a start every week to 10 days, but I think he's been sharp, and he looked good again tonight. We gave up some dangerous chances, especially early in the game, some breakdowns that I didn't love, and he came up big for us and gave us a chance to win the hockey game."

Nicolas Aube-Kubel gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 5:10 of the first period when his pass deflected in off the skate of Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon.
"We did some really good things tonight," Bednar said. "First period [we were] careless with the puck, had a couple turnovers and a few decisions where we gave them some easy scoring chances and a couple easy goals, really. One on a turnover and one on a read on the forecheck where we gave up an odd-man rush. But for the most part got better as the game went on, our defending was better in the third period and we started to spend more time in the offensive zone as the game went on as well."
Scheifele tied it 1-1 at 10:32, tapping in a pass from Ehlers on a 2-on-1 rush.
Ehlers made it 2-1 at 17:35, taking a pass from Scheifele in the slot and then scoring on his own rebound.
"They pushed hard," Burakovsky said. "They made it hard for us. They had a couple long shifts in our zone against us. They were shooting the puck and they were working hard. They were crashing the net. It was hard for us to defend against that. Really good job by us to find a way to win the game."
Burakovsky tied it 2-2 at 3:55 of the second with a wrist shot from the top of the left circle on the rush.
"I think we're a really deep team," Burakovsky said. "We're a good team offensively and I think we're creating a lot for each other. … I kind of want to take the next step and get a couple more [goals] and contribute a little bit more."

Erik Johnson put Colorado back in front 3-2 at 9:11 with a shot from the high slot.
MacKinnon pushed the lead to 4-2 at 4:04 of the third, finding a loose puck and scoring five-hole on Hellebuyck.
"Penalties hurt us at the end," Bednar said. "We had one opportunity with the empty net in order to probably put that game on ice and we didn't capitalize on it, and then we end up getting called for a penalty. I like the fact that our team stuck with it in overtime. You certainly don't like to give up a lead, but the Jets are a dangerous team. They have some shooters over there."
NOTES:Makar's assist was his 52nd to tie Ray Bourque (2000-01) for the second-most in a season in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history behind Steve Duchesne (62, 1992-93). … Burakovsky's 20th goal of the season ties an NHL career high (2019-20). He is Colorado's sixth 20-goal scorer this season, one behind the St. Louis Blues for the most in the NHL. The last time the Avalanche had that many 20-goal scorers was in 2005-06 (Milan Hejduk, Joe Sakic, Ian Laperriere, Andrew Brunette, Marek Svatos, Alex Tanguay). … Rantanen extended his point streak to seven games (11 points; four goals, seven assists). … Scheifele has 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) in the past 10 games and reached 40 assists for the fourth straight season. Blake Wheeler is the only player in Jets/Atlanta Thrashers history to have more (five, 2015-20). ... Ehlers has eight points (four goals, four assists) in a five-game point streak. … Jets defenseman Dylan Samberg had two hits in 12:03 in his first game since Jan. 25. He was recalled from Manitoba of the American Hockey League on an emergency basis Thursday. … Colorado plays at the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.