Down 4-0 with minutes to go: Winnipeg Jets complete the impossible comeback to end their nine-game nightmare

Down 4-0 with minutes to go: Winnipeg Jets complete the impossible comeback to end their nine-game nightmare

Staring at a tenth straight defeat and down four goals inside the final three minutes at the Bell Centre, the Winnipeg Jets scored four times in 2 minutes and 6…

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With 2:39 left in regulation on Tuesday night in Montreal, the game looked over. The Montreal Canadiens led 4-0, Cole Caufield had put them up by four with his second power-play goal of the night early in the third, and a Winnipeg side already dragging a nine-game losing streak was heading for a tenth.

Then Tyrel Bauer, lifting a shot past Jacob Fowler, scored the first NHL goal of his career to make it 4-1. Morgan Barron tipped another one past the Canadiens goaltender 42 seconds later. Kyle Connor, with Winnipeg’s net empty for the extra attacker, beat Fowler on a one-timer with a minute to go, and did it again 27 seconds after that. Four goals in 2:06. Tie game, 33 seconds left on the clock.

Dylan Samberg finished the job 3 minutes and 30 seconds into overtime, and the Jets walked out of the Bell Centre with a 5-4 win that no one in the building had seen coming.

‘That felt like a playoff win’

It was the kind of night nobody had any business expecting from the Jets. Winnipeg had arrived in Montreal off a 7-0 beating by the Carolina Hurricanes two days earlier, with a 0-7-2 run hanging over head coach Scott Arniel’s team.

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Fowler had looked untouchable for most of the night, finishing with 42 saves in defeat. The Jets had trailed by four goals late in the third period. And still Arniel’s team found a way.

“Four goals in 2:06, that doesn’t happen very often, if ever,” Arniel told NHL.com after the game. “That felt like a playoff win.”

Connor, whose two goals in the final minute dragged the game into overtime, did not try to hide what the result meant to a dressing room that had spent a month losing.

“Yeah, we’re gonna enjoy this one. You got to enjoy wins in the National Hockey League, especially when you’re on a streak like that,” he told theScore.

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Latest four-goal rally the NHL has ever seen

The league’s own stats team put a stamp on it. According to NHL Stats, cited by ESPN Insights, Winnipeg began its comeback 57 minutes and 21 seconds into the game, making it the latest four-goal rally in NHL history. The previous mark belonged to the Los Angeles Kings, who had started a four-goal comeback at 52:46 of regulation against the Dallas Stars on 10 November 2007.

The win lifted the Jets to 5-8-3 and ended a run that had read 0-7-2 before puck drop. Winnipeg’s next game is on the road against the Ottawa Senators.

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