The Winnipeg Jets are one of the NHL’s hottest teams with nine wins in their past 11 games.
Yet even with the recent run of success, the Jets — who will play host to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night — had a hard time explaining how they pulled out a pair of road victories over the weekend.
First was what Winnipeg fans are calling the “Rally in Raleigh” on Saturday. The Jets scored five third-period goals to overcome a three-goal deficit and beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3.
The next night in Buffalo, the Jets scored four unanswered goals in the final period to beat the Sabres 5-2. Two nights, a 9-0 scoring advantage over the course of two third periods.
The Jets entered the weekend just 2-13-1 this season when trailing after two periods.
“It’s been great. Those comebacks really kind of turned the momentum of the season,” said Morgan Barron, whose partial breakaway with 6:05 remaining proved to be the winner against the Sabres. “To dig deep and pull out two wins against good teams … it’s not easy to do. I think it speaks to the quality of the guys we have in this room.”
Vladislav Namestnikov and Josh Morrissey each had a goal and an assist and Nino Niederreiter and Sean Monahan also scored in Buffalo, helping the Jets move into a tie with the Dallas Stars atop the Central Division with three games in hand.
Winnipeg backup goaltender Laurent Brossoit made 17 saves against the Sabres.
“There’s a lot of fight in this group,” Jets coach Rick Bowness said. “We weren’t that happy in Dallas (a 4-1 loss on Thursday to open the three-game trip), but we knew (Saturday) in Carolina we were playing well. Stay with it. And the same as (Sunday). I know we were down 2-1, but we were playing really well. We were playing fast, we were creating turnovers, we were creating chances. Just stay in the fight.”
The Kraken, who are chasing one of the Western Conference’s two wild-card berths, showed some fight of their own in a 4-2 road victory Monday in Calgary. That pulled Seattle even with the Flames for fourth place in the wild-card standings, seven points behind both the Los Angeles Kings and Nashville Predators, who are tied for the West’s last two playoff spots.
“There’s still no quit in our team. We still see it as we can make it,” said Kraken defenseman Adam Larsson, who scored the winning goal on Monday. “Just going to keep believing.”
Jared McCann logged a goal and an assist and Oliver Bjorkstrand also scored for the Kraken. Philipp Grubauer made 35 saves to improve to 5-1-0 since returning from a two-plus-months injury absence.
“This (win) puts us right back in it,” said McCann, who has a team-leading 26 goals. “We feel like we’ve been playing well as of late but haven’t gotten the results.”
The downside of the night for Seattle was seeing defenseman Vince Dunn leave the game at 13:41 of the third period. He was hurt when checked from behind by Calgary forward Martin Pospisil, who was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct.
Kraken coach Dave Hakstol didn’t offer an update on Dunn’s health status after the game, but he called the hit “garbage.”
“From there, I’ll leave it to the league,” Hakstol said.
Seattle’s second-line center, Alex Wennberg, sat out Monday due to what Hakstol called “trade-related issues” ahead of Friday’s NHL deadline for deals.
–Field Level Media