On Sunday night, in front of another full house at a raucous BellMTS Place, Scheifele banged home Patrik Laine's OT rebound to put an exclamation point on a third-period comeback that gave the Jets their fifth straight win and third straight in overtime. It was also Scheifele's third overtime winner of the season. In fact, in the month of December, he has three overtime winners and a shootout winner.
"It was great," said Scheifele, who had a goal and two assists and now has 46 points on the season. "It was a great take to the net by him (Laine) and I was just happy too get the rebound and put the puck in the net. I didn't care if he scored it or I scored it. It was just great to get the win. They (Tampa) have a great team and they're fun to play against. That was a really fun game."
The Jets went into the game having gone 8-1-0 in their previous nine games. The Lightning, meanwhile, were on an eight-game winning streak. This was a battle of two of the NHL's heavyweights and it did not disappoint. It's seldom that fans get too see a game this fast and this intense in the first half of any season and from the opening face-off, it provide thrills and spills and ups and downs that were indeed, worth the price of admission.
"There was no quit," said Jets head coach Paul Maurice. "They worked hard and competed from start to finish. Just no quit at all."
The Lightning opened the scoring on a beautiful power play goal by Alex Killorn at 13:01 of the first period. The goal itself was outstanding as Killorn went in alone on Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. Ondrej Palat and Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy drew the assists. The goal was the result of a phantom slashing call against the Jets Dustin Byfuglien, a slash that was not apparent on any of a dozen replays. It was also called by a referee who was a full 50-feet from the alleged infraction. I would never suggest that NHL officiating is as bad as NFL officiating, but in this instance, it was.
To their credit, the Jets bounced back before the end of the period. On a power play of their own, Mathieu Perreault tipped home a perfect pass from Tyler Myers to tie the game at 19:43. Nikolai Ehlers also drew an assist on Perreault's seventh of the season as Perreault scored ins his fourth straight game and send the the Jets to the break in a 1-1 deadlock with the Lightning.
The Jets outshot Tampa 12-11 in the first period, although Hellebuyck was called upon to make half a dozen big saves.
In the second period, the Jets took a 2-1 lead at 8:36 when Brandon Tanev pounced on a loose puck in the crease and tapped home his seventh of the season. But that lead didn't last long. Just 37 seconds later, Steven Stamkos ripped a shot from 35-feet out that Hellebuyck didn't see and it was suddenly 2-2. It was Stamkos' 16th of the season as Palat drew his second assist of the night.
After the Stamkos goal, the ice seemed to tip toward the Jets net. The Lightning kept attacking and Hellebuyck kept making big saves until Tyler Johnson found a loss puck in front of the Jets goalie and slipped it under his pad for his 14th of the year. By that point, Tampa's size, speed and quickness had taken over the game and yet, the Jets didn't give up.
After a timeout, Nikolai Ehlers took a perfect pass from Mark Scheifele and with a wide-op[en net staring at him, Ehlers made no mistake, tying the game with his 11th of the season at 19:19. For the second straight period, the Jets scored with less than a minute two play to tie the game. Scheifele drew his 24th assist of the season on the goal while Blake Wheeler, who got the puck to Scheifele, notched his 39th helper.
Heading to the third period, the Jets had outshot the Lightning 28-25, but the game was locked at 3-3. Through the first 40 minutes, it was clearly the best game that had been played at BellMTS Place this season.
In the third period, Tampa took the lead at 6:55 when Nikita Kucherov scored his 14th of the season, but despite the fact that the Lightning had the territorial advantage in the third, the Jets battled back and tied it at 14:23 when Ehlers banged home Scheifele's rebound off the end boards to score his second of the night and 12th of the season.
The 4-4 tie held up until the 4:18 mark of overtime when Scheifele scored his 21st of the season to win it.
Tampa outshot Winnipeg 46-42 -- 21-14 in the third period and overtime. The Jets outhit the Lightning 28-23 while Tampa won 59 per cent of the face-offs.
The Jets are now 13-4-2 at home and 22-9-2 overall this season. Winnipeg, with 46 points, moved back into first place in the Central Division. They are tied with Calgary for first in the Western Conference, but they have a game in hand. Tampa is still No. 1 overall in the NHL with a record of 25-7-2 for 52 points.
Winnipeg will now head out ono the road to play three games on the West Coast. They face Los Angeles on Tuesday, San Jose on Thursday and Vancouver on Saturday before starting the Christmas break.
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