Jets overcome late rally to beat Hurricanes in overtime

WINNIPEG -Mikey Eyssimont called Monday night the best night of his life.
He scored his first National Hockey League goal, the Winnipeg Jets were winning, and then the Carolina Hurricanes tried to take it all away from him.
The Jets built a 3-0 lead through the first 55:12 of regulation, only to see the Hurricanes score three times with their net empty in the final 4:48 to send the game to overtime.
Josh Morrissey saved the milestone night though, scoring his second career overtime winner - and second of the contest - to give the Jets and 4-3 victory.
"The fact that it happened in a win means the most," said Eyssimont. "It's a tough last five minutes there, but that's why we have all of the skill that we have for overtimes."

Just before the halfway mark of the overtime period, Morrissey blew the Jets zone and got behind the Carolina defence. Pierre-Luc Dubois sent a perfect pass from below the goal line right on Morrissey's tape just outside the Hurricanes line.
Morrissey walked in alone and snapped home his third of the season, beating Pyotr Kochetkov on the glove side.
"He comes out pretty far," Morrissey said of Kochetkov, who he beat earlier in the game as well. "Nothing really on the scouting report but I just saw a hole and tried to shoot it. Wasn't going to get too fancy. Just tried to surprise him. Obviously super happy it went in."

As were his teammates, who flooded the ice to celebrate with the defenceman, who had just put the finishing touches on the win, and his first career multi-goal game in the NHL.
"At the end of the season, and this is what I told him, when there's a discussion of who the top 10 D are for the Norris Trophy voting, I want to see his name in there," said Jets head coach Rick Bowness. "And he's taken great pride in that."
Winnipeg (11-5-1) can also take great pride in the game they played through 55 minutes.
Carolina came into the game averaging the fourth most shots on goal per game (35.7) in the NHL. The Jets not only kept them to 27, but according to Natural Stat Trick, also held the edge in high-danger chances at five-on-five 8-3.
The Hurricanes had just one of those high-danger chances through 40 minutes.
"That was outstanding. We didn't give up anything," said Bowness. "No chances, outside shots, slot coverage was good, back pressure was good, gap was good. It was outstanding hockey."
A shift spent primarily in the defensive zone actually led to the Jets opening the scoring. Blake Wheeler sprung Dubois on a breakaway by threading a pass into the neutral zone and Dubois made no mistake, snapping his eighth of the season past Kochetkov for a 1-0 Jets lead.

The Jets extended that lead in the second, when Eyssimont followed up a David Gustafsson breakaway, and chipped home the loose puck for his first NHL goal, which came with 13:16 left in the middle frame.
"I've visualized it for my whole life, so to finally get it, you never know how it's going to happen," said Eyssimont. "I had quite a bit of net to shoot at and there were some bodies flying around in front of the net."
It was Eyssimont's fifth career NHL game, and fourth this season.
"He comes to work every single day and battles, works extremely hard and he's just a great guy," said Morrissey. "So for him to get that one, I was on the ice, you can see the excitement in his face when he turns to celebrate. That's what it's all about."
The lead grew to 3-0 just under four minutes into the third, when Morrissey joined the rush and buried a Wheeler drop pass past Kochetkov for his second goal of the season.
But that's when things got a little crazy.

David Rittich was less than five minutes from his first shutout with the Jets when Jaccob Slavin scored the first of Carolina's three goals in 4:09 - all with the goalie pulled, all off deflections.
Andrei Svechnikov and Martin Necas potted the other two.
For Rittich though, there wasn't a choice on how to respond. He knew what he had to do.
"Did you see how those guys worked hard for me? It's pretty easy to work hard and do your job," Rittich said. "Pretty easy to stick with the game and help them out."

He made one key stop, the last of his 24 saves on the night, in overtime to get a face-off, which set the stage for Morrissey's overtime heroics.
"Before we hopped on to start overtime, Eyssimont and Dylan Samberg were saying, "Let's go boys, let's get this one,'" Morrissey said. "Two young guys with not that many games experience so that kind of shows the calm on our bench."
Sure, the Jets will go over the game footage - both the positives of the first 55 minutes, and look for ways to improve the final five - but for the rest of Monday evening, all that matters is the two points in the standings.
And what Eyssimont plans to do with his milestone puck.
"I think they're going to frame it and it will go up in my house," Eyssimont said, adding he has some of his own film work to do tonight.
"I have to re-watch it. I haven't seen it yet (on replay)," he said. "To have the boys come over and celebrate with (me) and have all of the guys congratulating me, that means the most."