NHL - Carolina Hurricanes @ Winnipeg Jets 4-5 OT - Thursday, October 13, 2016

Mark Scheifele scored with 2:19 left in overtime to give the Winnipeg Jets a 5-4 season-opening win against the Carolina Hurricanes at MTS Centre on.  Scheifele's goal came after some handiwork by Jets captain Blake Wheeler that created a 2-on-1 that completed the comeback after being 4-1 down earlier in the period.

Mathieu Perreault made it 4-4 with 1:29 to go, after the Jets made it 4-3 on Patrik Laine's first NHL goal with 6:27 left. Shawn Matthias and Wheeler (shorthanded) also scored for the Jets. Jeff Skinner, Lee Stempniak, Jordan Staal and Victor Rask scored for the Hurricanes, who had two power-play goals.

Winnipeg goaltender Connor Hellebuyck made 23 saves. Carolina goaltender Cam Ward allowed five goals on 26 shots.     

Jets center Bryan Little left the game after an awkward first-period collision with Hurricanes forward Bryan Bickell. No update was given on Little's injury.
A sloppy start benefitted the Jets, and Matthias scored at 4:14 of the first period, banking a shot off Ward's shoulder from behind the goal line for a 1-0 lead.
The Hurricanes tied the game 1-1 at 11:23. Stempniak stripped Josh Morrissey of the puck behind Hellebuyck and found Skinner, who had time to slip it over the goal line on his second attempt. The Hurricanes took a 2-1 lead on the power play at 4:47 of the second period. Noah Hanifin's point shot ricocheted off Stempniak's leg and in behind Hellebuyck for his second point.

Staal scored unassisted at 19:29 for a 3-1 lead amid protests from the Jets, who felt Dustin Byfuglien was impeded in the slot by Bickell. Rask scored at 5:02 of the third period on the power play to give Carolina a 4-1 lead. Wheeler scored shorthanded nine seconds later after he intercepted Skinner's back-pass just outside his zone to make it 4-2.

* Wheeler won a puck battle against Justin Faulk just outside the Hurricanes blue line nearing the halfway point of overtime. The play sent Wheeler and Scheifele in on a 2-on-1. Wheeler waited until Hanifin went down in an attempt to block the pass before feeding Scheifele, who scored into the top of the net. 
* Hellebuyck stopped a redirected puck by Rask seconds before Scheifele scored the game-winner at the other end. Replays appeared to show Hellebuyck being unaware of the location of the shot, which ended up hitting him in the chest before he smothered it. "Yeah, it was just tipping around," he said. "I was following it."

* Joel Armia put together a 51-second shift of disruption for the Jets late in the second period. The forward stalled the Hurricanes' advance on the power play, breaking up several attempts, and at one point stalled Carolina in its zone with an aggressive forecheck.

* Laine, the No. 2 pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, put a wrist shot up and over Ward's glove hand for his first NHL goal.
* Hurricanes forward Sebastian Aho had an assist and two shots in 14:48 of ice time in his NHL debut. 

 

Quotes

Jets coach Paul Maurice: "To come back down 4-1 with 15 minutes on the clock, if this a veteran team, we'd be talking about their resilience and their know-how and character and their grit and they never quit, so let's just apply those to a young team and be happy with the way they battled back."
Mark Scheifele: "We just started to get on the puck. I think early in the game we were giving them too much space to hold on to it. That third period, we had some urgency, and I think that was a contributing factor."
"That was huge. That was the starting point, you know, to take the wind out of their sails. That was big for us. That's what you want from your captain."
Patrik Laine: "In front of the home crowd, it was quite unbelievable. You only score the first goal once, so it was quite special."
"None. He's playing his game and his career. I don't want to match my game to his. He can score 20 goals in a game, I don't care. It's good for him. I'm just going to help my team to win with my things." On comparisons to No. 1 draft pick Auston Matthews, who scored four goals for the Toronto Maple Leafs in his NHL debut the previous night.