ӣ����Ƶ

Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck allowed two quick goals on the heels of his disastrous Game 6 performance. The Jets fell back on their heels against the Blues, who opened Game 7 with a near-perfect first-period performance.

Winnipeg fans grew more anxious by the moment. Their home-ice advantage was melting before their eyes.

But then the Jets dug down, dug in and turned the game. They controlled play for most of the second and third periods.

They capped their desperate rally with two 6-on-5 goals at the end, with their net empty and their time running out. They pinned the Blues in their own zone and kept pumping pucks toward the net.

“There was belief in this group,” Winnipeg winger Nikolai Ehlers told reporters. “Nobody was hanging their heads. We looked at each other and said, 'we’re not done playing hockey yet.' It was special.”

The Jets earned the bounces they needed to force overtime, with just 2.2 seconds to spare.

“It’s euphoric,” Jets winger Kyle Connor said. “It’s emotional. It’s motivating. We used that in overtime. The crowd was incredible, we really felt like they were standing on their feet. The loudest they’ve ever been, and I’ve ever heard them. I think we just fed off that and just kept rolling. It gives you that extra energy to dig in at the back end of your shift and bear down.”

The Jets kept attacking in the first and second overtimes until they finally scored the series-winning goal.

One of the most thrilling surges in Blues franchise history ended with arguably the most painful loss in team lore.

And the Jets – injury-battered as they are – will play on after clearing a massive hurdle.

Writing for Sportsnet, Jacob Stoller reminded us what that means:

Anybody with the slightest tie to the city of Winnipeg will forever remember where they were on May 4, 2025. 

Sunday’s Game 7, double-overtime win over the ӣ����Ƶ Blues may have altered the course of the Winnipeg Jets franchise. 

Down 3-1 with just over three minutes remaining in the third period, these Jets were on the verge of another strong regular season being wasted.

The talk of the summer would’ve been how these Jets aren’t built for the playoffs. How Connor Hellebuyck chokes in the post-season. The 2025-26 season would’ve been clouded with a “who cares” sentiment. 

But you can scrunch that narrative up and throw it in the trash. 

“The hardest thing in the NHL is to win the first round. It really is,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “You build confidence as you can, but it’s so hard to get through that first round. There’s a lot of doubt at times, there’s obviously lots of excitement but for our group, just for me in the sense of being here in just the three years, to lose in those first rounds, those were heartbreaking.

“Last year, obviously with the season we had, to do it this year we didn’t want to go out. That was one of the messages I said to these guys, ‘bring your best game forward and have no regrets.' And that’s what it was all about. And that’s what I thought, that after we got through the first (period), that’s what happened. Nobody wanted to be done, nobody wanted to be done playing this year, and that was special.”

Here is what folks have been writing about the NHL playoffs:

Ryan Dixon, Sportsnet: “If there’s such a thing as a clutch coach, Stars bench boss Pete DeBoer is surely it. With the comeback win versus the Avs, DeBoer is now a perfect 9-0 in Game 7s in his NHL career. The 56-year-old has one Game 7 victory with New Jersey, three with San Jose, two with Vegas and, now, three with Dallas.  Also, Wyatt Johnston — who turns 22 later this month — now already has two Game 7 game-winning goals to his credit. Two years ago, as a rookie, he scored the third-period game-winner in a 2-1 second-round victory over Seattle.”

Pierre LeBrun, The Athletic: “The playoffs began with (Mikko) Rantanen feeling the heat for putting up just one assist in four games. There were questions about whether No. 96 was struggling to adjust to his new surroundings. There were questions about whether it was too difficult for him to wrap his mind around playing his longtime pals in Colorado. There were questions about whether he could still produce at the same level without his old buddy Nathan MacKinnon on his line. ‘I think he answered that question,’ Stars head coach Peter DeBoer said to that last one. Rantanen put up 11 points (6-5) in the last three games, and well, playoff Mikko was back. And he saved the Stars in a series where they were outplayed for long stretches by the Avalanche.”

Nicholas J. Cotsonika, : “Colorado went 3-for-22 on the power play (13.6 percent) and 16-for-23 on the penalty kill (69.6 percent) in the series. The special teams didn't come through at key times. In Games 2 and 3, the Avalanche had a power play late in the third that carried into overtime. In Game 3, after the penalty kill allowed the tying goal to Jamie Benn at 9:18 of the third, the power play had a four-minute man-advantage. Each time, Colorado failed to score and lost in OT -- 4-3 in Game 3, 2-1 in Game 4. In Game 5, the Avalanche pulled within 3-2 on MacKinnon's goal at 14:38 of the second. Wyatt Johnston scored on the power play 2:10 later that gave the Stars a 4-2 lead en route to a 6-2 win. In Game 7, they failed to score during a four-minute man-advantage in the first and gave up Johnston's game-winner on the power play with 3:56 to go in the third.”

Ray Ratto, The Defector: “If you are a Wild fan, either you have arrived at that point (of resignation) or you still think the Easter Bunny spends its offseasons stockpiling chocolate. In the 3,659 days since their last playoff series victory in 2015, the Wild have lost nine consecutive playoff series and 41 of 55 playoff games. Whatever level of suffering that is, it has at least reached a level of normalcy to become fatalism. Then again, that is the way of the Minnesota sports fan in general. Even allowing for the ascendancy of Anthony Edwards after he and the Timberwolves defeated the inflated (and swiftly deflatable) Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the NBA playoffs, Minnesota is not where fan hopes go to die, but to sigh. The Twins are the zenith of the nadir, having made 12 playoff series since their last championship in 1991 and won only two. The Vikings have reached three conference championship games in this century and lost by an aggregate score of 110-35. Even the Wolves, currently on their second successful run in franchise history, have been to two conference finals. Only the WNBA’s Lynx have provided validation, with three titles and two more visits to the league final, the last being 2024.”

MEGAPHONE

“I never felt we were going to lose, even when it was 2-0 and we didn’t have anything going. There’s a belief in that room that something was going to happen, and obviously Rantanen put the team on his back in the last 10 minutes. But I think the group’s pretty special. They’ve had a lot of stuff thrown at them from an adversity point of view, and they keep responding, keep responding and keep answering the doubters. I felt something was going to happen.

Dallas Stars coach Peter DeBoer, on his team’s Game 7 comeback against Colorado.