WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Trailing 3-1 in the third period of Game 7, with their season on the line, the top-seeded Winnipeg Jets rallied to stun the St. Louis Blues 4-3 in double overtime, securing a victory Sunday night in their dramatic first-round series.
The Jets forced OT with two goals in the final two minutes of regulation. Vladislav Namestnikov scored his second of the series at the 18:04 mark, and Cole Perfetti‘s deflection past St. Louis goaltender Jordan Binnington at 19:57 sent the crowd into a frenzy, before captain Adam Lowry completed the rally with a goal in the second OT.
Winnipeg — which won the Presidents’ Trophy this season as the team with the highest point total in the NHL — moves on to meet the Dallas Stars in Round 2. The Vegas Golden Knights will take on the Edmonton Oilers in the other Western Conference semifinal series.
The Jets did not make it easy on themselves. Playing without injured star forward Mark Scheifele, the No. 1-seeded Jets often looked lifeless for crucial stretches of the first two periods, and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck continued his inconsistent postseason play, giving up two first-period goals, and a third with just 35 seconds left in the second period.
“We came out real nervous in that first period, and they got two quick goals,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said in his rinkside postgame interview on TBS. “But we just kept telling the guys, ‘stay in it, stay in it.'”
The Jets clearly missed Scheifele, who left Game 5 after the first period because of an undisclosed injury after taking a pair of big hits and was absent from the Blues’ 5-2 win Friday in St. Louis. The center had two goals and four assists in five games this series.
“This crowd at home, obviously, they are our seventh man, they set the tone for us,” Arniel said, making reference to how the team fared without their best offensive player. “But all year long, we’ve had ‘next man up, next man up.’ We did it again tonight.”
Jordan Kyrou, Mathieu Joseph and Radek Faksa scored for the Blues, who rallied behind coach Jim Montgomery, a midseason replacement, just to squeeze into the Western Conference playoffs in the final wild-card spot.
Winnipeg’s victory keeps up hope that the Presidents’ Trophy curse might be undone. The award hasn’t landed in the hands of an eventual Stanley Cup champion since 2013, when the Chicago Blackhawks won both trophies in a lockout-shortened season. The last team to do it in a full season was the Detroit Red Wings in 2007-08
The home team won every game in this first-round series, which was the first of the NHL’s eight to begin, and the last one to end. Round 2 begins Monday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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