Kyle Connor sunk the Edmonton Oilers season with a snipe at 6:52 of the third overtime to give the Jets a 4-3 victory at Bell MTS Place in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
Winnipeg swept the best-of-seven Stanley Cup series 4-0. It was the first time that the Jets have ever beaten Edmonton in the NHL playoffs and the first time they had ever swept an opponent in the playoffs. It was the longest game in Jets franchise history.
The Jets will advance to play against the winner of the Toronto-Montreal series.
Connor took a long pass from defenceman Neil Pionk, who had checked Edmonton’s ever-dangerous Connor McDavid on the boards.
“I was pretty tired on the backcheck,” Connor admitted to CBC/Sportsnet. “I didn’t want to change there. I was trying as hard as I can to get back. (Poolman) made a great play there on McDavid and chopped it up the wall. I turned back and nobody was around. I was just trying to get it on net. I was pretty tired at the end of the shift … That one feels pretty good.”
It was the third straight OT game in the series.
Winnipeg centre Mark Scheifele had forced overtime with his second goal of the game. After forward Blake Wheeler intercepted a pass, he sent the puck to Connor, who tipped it over to Scheifele for a one-timer that beat Edmonton netminder Mike Smith at the 6:01 mark of the third period to knot the score at 3-3.
“That was a hard-fought series,” Scheifele said. “It was 4-0 but it sure didn’t feel like that, that’s for sure. We’re obviously happy we got the win. Lot of resilience from our team … It was just a fantastic team effort.”
The Oilers blew a lead for the second straight game.
“It’s the little mistakes,” McDavid told reporters. “We had leads in these last two games, we just didn’t find a way to close them out.
The Oilers had taken advantage of Winnipeg’s parade to the penalty box in the second period to take a 3-2 lead. With Pierre-Luc Dubois off for holding, Edmonton forward Alex Chiasson scored on the ensuing power play with Leon Draisaitl setting him up. Earlier, Edmonton forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins made Jets defenceman Neil Pionk look bad, then beat Winnipeg goaltender Connor Hellebuyck with a backhand to tie the score 2-2.
The Jets had taken a 2-1 lead into the second period. Winnipeg forward Mason Appleton snapped a 1-1 tie when he deflected a point shot by defenceman Josh Morrissey past Smith. Adam Lowry also assisted.
Scheifele had opened the scoring on the powerplay by firing a one-timer on a great pass from Wheeler at the 6:16 mark. Morrissey also assisted.
McDavid tied the score 1-1 just 1:17 later when he surprised Hellebuyck with a wraparound. Forwards Draisaitl and Jesse Puljujarvi assisted.
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Blake Wheeler blocked a shot with his groin near the end of one of the periods and left the ice. But he was back out for the next period.
“I’ve got three beautiful kids, we’re not having any more so, what the hell,” Wheeler said.
