Winnipeg Jets Shock Carolina Hurricanes in OT to stay in Playoff Race -NHL Update
It was a disappointing night for the Carolina Hurricanes and an exact opposite for the Winnipeg Jets as the former can consider their chances of making the playoffs done and over with while the latter team is still up and alive.
Winnipeg shocked the entire arena and the Hurricanes as they took the much needed two points by making the overtime game-winner and tying the eighth place New York Rangers with 48 points after a 2-1 victory on Thursday night.
The Jets almost lost the matchup as they gave up a 3-1 lead and allowed the Carolina Hurricanes, requiring that extra effort in order to not only stay alive, but to capture those invaluable points as well at this point in the NHL regular season.
"We keep making it tough on ourselves," Captain Andrew Ladd said of the Jets, according to NHL.com, "but like we've said, the main thing is getting two points."
"I don't think it's the way you draw it up to go like this," Jets coach Claude Noel said, "but we found a way to win. So that's a good thing, and we've done it twice in a row."
Zach Bogosian kicked off the scoring for the Winnipeg Jets a little over midway in the opening period while Paul Postma made it 2-0 8:27 into the second. Carolina bounced back midway through and took over the third as TuomoRuutu scored twice and Alexander
Semin leveled it to force overtime. It was Dustin Byfuglien who scored the OT winner at 1:23 on Carolina goalie, Justin Peters, to get Winnipeg past the furious Hurricanes.
"We can enjoy this for a couple of more minutes and get ready for Saturday," Byfuglien said. "This is the fun time of the year. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, and we've got to just keep going."
Winnipeg has its next matchup on Saturday, which it must win in any case if they are looking towards heading the playoffs for the first time since being shifted to Canada prior to the beginning of the last season. The next couple of days will definitely
be interesting.
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