Kyle Connor scored the tie-out goal with 1:36 left to help Winnipeg Jets rally for a 5-3 victory against the visiting St. Louis Blues in Game 1 in their first round of Western Conference series Saturday night.
Connor made a one-hour from the bottom of the right circle to give Jets a 4-3 lead. Adam Lowry sealed it with an empty net target with 53 seconds left.
Connor and Mark Scheifele each had a goal and two assists, Jaret Anderson-Dolan and Alex Iafallo also did, Josh Morrissey had two assists and Connor Hellebuyck made 14 rescues for Jets, who won the president’s trophy for the best record in the NHL during the ordinary season.
Robert Thomas, Oskar Sundqvist and Jordan Kyrou scored, Justin Faulk had two assists, and Jordan Binnington made 21 rescues for St. Louis, who went 13-2-1 during the last month of the regular season to earn the second Wild card from the Western Conference.
Blues took 3-2 lead into the third period before Jets Band it at 3 o’clock. 9:18.
Scheifele passed the puck below the finish line to Iafallo beside the fold and he slid the puck into the far side of the net.
Thomas gave Blues a 1-0 lead at 9:31 in the first period when he made a wrist shot from the left circle while he was on a power play.
Winnipeg was on a power play when Scheifele got a pass almost the finish line and to the side of the net. He tried to pass to Cole Perfetti on the opposite side, but the puck went off the knit leaf by St. Louis defender Ryan Suter and into his own network to bind it at 1 at 13:38.
Jets took the lead 1:24 later when Anderson-Dolan diverted a point shot in the net to do it 2-1 at 15:02.
St. Louis banded it at 2 pm at 18:10 of the first when a blocked shot went into the track and Sundqvist shot the loose puck over Hellebuyck’s left shoulder and at the top of the net.
St. Louis made his second power play when Kyrou hit the net from just above the right circle for a 3-2 lead at 1:13 of the second period.
-Field level media
