A valiant comeback effort by the Florida Panthers fell short on Tuesday night in Winnipeg.
The Jets gave their fans something to cheer about at Canada Life Centre, rebounding from Saturday’s shutout loss in Sunrise by beating the Florida 6-3.
Despite the Panthers controlling play for much of the first period, it would be Winnipeg that came away with the only goals.
First it was Kyle Connor jumping on a loose puck in Florida’s zone and beating Sergei Bobrovsky with a backhand over his glove, and then just over three minutes later, Mark Scheifele wired a wrist shot under Bob’s glove and over his pad from the right faceoff dot.
Florida led 8-3 in shots on goal at the 12:45 mark of first period, and the only two shots on goal during the remainder of the frame were the two that went into Florida’s net.
The game could’ve changed significantly during the second period when both Uvis Balinskis and Evan Rodrigues were called for minor penalties on the same play, giving the Jets a full two minutes of a two-man advantage.
Florida’s penalty kill came up huge against the Jets’ top-ranked power play, killing off the entirety of both penalties thanks to five big saves by Bobrovsky, a pair of shot blocks by Gus Forsling and Aaron Ekblad, and an amazing shift by Sasha Barkov.
Unfortunately for the Cats, they may have cashed in all their penalty kill good vibes because later in the period when given another power play chance, Scheifele one-timed his second goal of the game past Bobrovsky give the Jets a 3-0 lead with 4:19 left in the middle frame.
A.J. Greer got the Cats on the board just over 100 seconds later when his shot deflected off the skate of Adam Lowry and past Connor Hellebuyck.
Hey, a little puck luck never hurt anyone.
It could’ve helped Barkov, who hit the goal post twice in the span of about a minute early in the third period, but it was all good because moments later, Sam Reinhart finished off a pretty passing play with a slot shot that beat Hellebuyck to bring the Cats within one.
An offensive zone penalty by Eetu Luostarinen gave Winnipeg a power play right after the goal.
The puck stayed in Florida’s zone for the entire two minutes and the Cats somehow pulled off the kill, but the exhausted Panthers couldn’t get the puck out of the zone and broke down around the net, leading to a wide open Scheifele completing his hat trick.
With 4:04 to go, Josh Morrissey tripped Niko Mikkola, giving Florida a late power play of their own.
Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice kept Bobrovksy on the bench to give the Cats a two-man advantage, and they cashed in thanks to a sweet shot by Matthew Tkachuk and a great screen by Barkov with 3:22 to go.
Another Cats power play with 2:15 to go would give some hope, but Winnipeg scored into Florida’s vacated net to make it 5-3 Jets with 1:37 to go.
They added another ENG for good measure, taking the game 6-3.
On to Chicago.
QUICK THOUGHTS
Reinhart extended his point streak to 11 games, now with nine goals and 17 points during the run.
Barkov’s point streak is now at nine games as he assisted on Reinhart’s goal. He has racked up three goals and 17 points on his streak.
Nate Schmidt has four points over his past six games after assisting on Greer’s second period goal.
Schmidt also picked up points in both of Florida’s games against Winnipeg.
After recording just two assists in 11 October games, Greer has two goals and four points in eight games this month.
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