DeMelo scores the winning goal in the 600th game of his career and leads the Winnipeg Jets to victory over Seattle 2-1 – Winnipeg
On a historic night for Dylan DeMelo, the stay-at-home defenseman received a souvenir.
Playing in his 600th NHL game, the light-hitter scored the game-winning goal in the final minute as the Winnipeg Jets beat the Seattle Kraken 2-1 on Thursday night at the Canada Life Centre.
DeMelo’s goal with just 27 seconds left broke the one-goal deadlock to give the Jets their third straight win.
“Obviously I’m a guy who doesn’t score a lot,” Demelo said after scoring his second goal of the season. “Obviously scoring the game-winning goal is just putting the cherry on top and getting the win. So, yeah, it was a really special night, a night I’ll definitely remember.”
Mark Scheifele had the other tally for the Jets to give them goals in four straight games. He’s also riding a seven-point streak.
It was another slow start for the Jets, but they found their legs in the final 40 minutes.
“I liked the way we played the last two periods,” coach Scott Arnell said. “Not so much the first one. We talked about being better in our starts and coming out of the gate.
“But we settled down, and then as I mentioned, we controlled the second and went straight to the third.”
The Jets held the Kraken to just five shots on goal in the second and just three in the final frame as they outscored Seattle 36-19.
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“I think we, as I said, controlled most of the last 40 (minutes),” Nikolaj Ehlers said after setting up the winning goal. “We didn’t give them much.
“When you’re rolling like you are, you don’t want to give them anything. You don’t want to give them a breath of fresh air, and I think that’s something, personally, that we can do a little better than just keep jamming down their throat.”
The Jets have at least one point in their last five straight games.
Seattle got its first power play of the game when Logan Stanley was given a questionable penalty for elbowing, and while the Jets were able to kill it, it wasn’t long after the kill that the Kraken opened the scoring.
The play started out innocuously when Seattle got the puck out of its own end but the dynamic changed when Jaden Schwartz threw the ball at Winnipeg’s end of the red line, giving Kaapo Kakko a chance to win a race for the puck against Kyle Connor. Connor stepped back, Kakko got the ball back and hit a wide-open Matty Pinners in front of the net for the opening goal at the 8:12 mark.
Seattle finished with an 11-8 lead in shots on goal heading into the second period, though Winnipeg began to control more of the play as the middle frame rolled around, leading to their first appearance on the power play with 10:59 remaining.
Winnipeg won the ensuing faceoff and the best power play in the league worked. Eventually, Josh Morrissey threaded a pass to the right face-off point where Joey Daccord stopped Connor’s ball for a one-timer but the rebound bounced back to the other point where Scheifele was waiting to put the ball home for his 27th time of the season, leveling the score. The score is 1-1.
A few minutes later, Winnipeg had a second power play of the period but Seattle was able to eliminate it.
The Kraken nearly regained the lead with just over three minutes remaining in the period when Andre Burakovsky raced past Jets defenders as they made a line change but was stopped by Connor Hellebuyck with a flashy glove.
The game remained tied 1-1 after a period in which the Jets outscored the Kraken 19-5.
Winnipeg continued to control play in the third period and threatened to take the lead as Stanley and Adam Lowry both fired shots off the crossbar but it remained 1-1 deep in regulation before Demelo took the lead.
Adam Larsson had the puck in the corner and chipped it into the boards but it took a funky bounce off the stanchion and into the slot where Ehlers collected it. He held the puck for a moment, then turned around and noticed DeMelo was open at that point. DeMelo got the puck, saw Daccord was being checked and hit a shot high over Daccord’s glove for just the 19th goal of his career.
This goal was also his second game-winning goal of the season and the third of his career.
Hellebuyck only had to turn away 18 shots in the game as Winnipeg outscored Seattle 28-8 over the final 40 minutes.
The Jets wrap up this eight-game season on Saturday night when they host the Calgary Flames.
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