GAME STORY: Jets 5, Oilers 4 - Game 3 (OT)

WINNIPEG, MB - Nikolaj Ehlers scored twice including the OT winner in his 2021 playoff debut as Winnipeg won 5-4 in sudden death on Sunday to take a 3-0 lead in the North Division semifinal.

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FIRST BLOOD

Leon Draisaitl's first of two tallies in the first period came at the 6:33 mark after Connor McDavid set up Slater Koekkoek for a one-timer from the point. The shot hit Adam Lowry's stick on its way to the net and the puck came to Draisaitl at the side of the net. He carefully navigated around Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck's outstretched left pad and tucked home the goal just inside the near post to make it 1-0 for the visitors.

PLAY OF THE GAME

Just 64 seconds after Nikolaj Ehlers cut Edmonton's lead to 2-1 with a power-play marker late in the middle frame, the Oilers quickly re-established their two-goal cusion on a brilliant passing play finished by Zack Kassian. McDavid stole the puck from the Jets at Edmonton's blueline, burst into the neutral zone and slid the puck to his left to Draisaitl, who skated into Winnipeg territory and fired a perfect forehand pass on to the tape of Kassian cutting to the net, and the winger beat Hellebuyck over the blocker to make it 3-1 heading into the second intermission.

SAVE OF THE GAME

Early in overtime, Gaetan Haas stole the puck in the Jets zone and knocked it up to Kailer Yamamoto cutting to the net in alone on Hellebuyck, but the Winnipeg goalie stood tall to deny the initial shot and the rebound to keep the night going, ultimately leading to his team's second sudden-death winner in as many games. Hellebuyck finished with 44 saves as his outstanding series continued.

TURNING POINT

Starting with Mathieu Perreault's power-play marker at the 11:41 mark, the Jets rattled off three goals in 3:03 to tie the score at 4-4 and force overtime for the second straight game. Ehlers completed the shocking comeback at 9:13 of the first sudden-death frame, sniping a top-shelf wrist shot past Mike Smith right off a faceoff win by Friday's OT hero Paul Stastny.

TOP PERFORMER

Draisaitl delivered a performance in the opening two periods that displayed why he's the reigning Hart Trophy winner as league MVP, scoring both goals in the first stanza and adding an outstanding assist in the middle frame. In his 20-game post-season career to date, the German superstar has recorded three or more points five times and two or more points seven times.

FACT CHECK

With his two goals in the opening frame, Draisaitl scored twice in the same period for the third time this season. He also became the 25th player in franchise history to record 10 career playoff goals as he now has 11 in 20 post-season games. Adding an assist on Kassian's goal, Draisaitl has 25 career playoff points, trailing only Wayne Gretzky (44), Jari Kurri (28) and Glenn Anderson (26) for the most points in 20 career post-season games with Edmonton.

NEXT UP

The Oilers and Jets will play their first back-to-back of the series with Game 4 going Monday. If Edmonton is able to avoid elimination, Game 5 will be contested back at Rogers Place on Wednesday.

PARTING WORDS

"Winning is hard and there are painful lessons that you need to learn to win," Head Coach Dave Tippett said of Winnipeg's comeback and eventual overtime winner. "We were pretty good at [closing out games] all year, but tonight we learned some hard lessons on what not to do to win in the playoffs."
"I'll be worried if we don't take the lessons that we should learn tonight and use them accordingly," Tippett said of the quick turnaround with a do-or-die Game 4 on Monday. "We did enough good things in this game tonight to win. We gave a game away and now we'll see how we respond."
"It's tough to take right now, but the good thing is we get right back at it tomorrow," Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. "We still have to fight, we're still in this thing. We can't roll over here. We need to have a huge pushback starting tomorrow."