WINNIPEG — 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 St. Louis 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.
These Jets? They’re no regular-season merchants. Thanks to a tying goal from Cole Perfetti with 1.6 seconds remaining, followed by a double-OT deflection from Adam Lowry.
“It’s nice to kind of have those questions put to rest, (about) can this team get out of the first round,” Lowry said after Winnipeg’s 4-3 win.
Another first-round exit would’ve deterred this organization’s quest to make sell-outs the norm again. It wouldn’t have helped them convince free agents — or players with no-move clauses — that Winnipeg presents a legitimate opportunity to compete for a championship.
There were big-picture ramifications. And you could tell by the reaction of the team’s top executives.
GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and Assistant GM Larry Simmons were seen jumping up and down in the press box after the double-OT Winner. Owner Mark Chipman was visibly emotional as he embraced his family post-game.
That Game 7 win flipped the script.
Maybe these Jets do have something special. Maybe there’s some merit to those buzzwords — buy-in, compete, details — they rally around.
They had no business winning that game. They were without Mark Scheifele, lost Josh Morrissey in the first period and Hellebuyck let in a softie just over a minute into the game. Nikolaj Ehlers and Gabriel Vilardi were hardly at full strength.
“There was belief in this group. Nobody was hanging their heads,” Ehlers said. “We looked at each other and said, ‘we’re not done playing hockey yet.’ It was special.”
Especially because the tying goal came from Perfetti, the unsung hero this team so desperately needed. Entering this series, the 23-year-old had one playoff game under his belt. He scored two goals in a do-or-die game, giving him five points in seven playoff games.
“He was one of our best forwards this whole series, both rinks in both buildings,” Arniel said. “He had a number of opportunities, him scoring the other night in St. Louis was big. It finally went in, now to get those two big ones tonight, and he had a few more chances, that’s the evolution you want from your young players. He’s grown so much this year, and for a guy that doesn’t have a lot of experience this time of year, I really like how he’s handled the first round in a very heavy series.”
Perfetti’s goal will go down as the most clutch moment in Jets history.
“It’s euphoric,” 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.”
They needed every bit of a boost they could get. Connor led all forwards with 36:08 of ice time. Neal Pionk finished the game with 46:15 minutes, and Dylan Samberg logged 44 minutes of his own. It was a war zone.
“That was as heavy a series as I’ve seen in a long time,” Arniel said. “There was no ice that wasn’t contested and no player that wasn’t going to get knocked into the wall.”
It was only fitting that the game-winning goal came from Lowry. A player who, night in and night out, epitomizes everything this team strives for on (and off) the ice.
“When you see a guy like that putting his body on the line, doing everything he possibly can for this team, you have no choice but to follow,” Perfetti said. “He is vocal in the room, but I think the way that he leads this team is through his actions and through his play. When he’s doing that and giving everything he has every second of his shift, you have no choice but to follow him and give everything you have. We’re lucky to have him as our leader.”
All year long, Arniel has talked about this team building calluses. A battered and bruised team executing a comeback win and winning in double OT? That’s the type of experience that propels a cup run.
And in the Jets’ case, it may have also altered the perception of this core.
“The hardest thing in the NHL is to win the first round. It really is,” 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, that’s what happened. Nobody wanted to be done, nobody wanted to be done playing this year, and that was special.”
