Jets rally in 3rd period again, surge past Sabres

BUFFALO -- Morgan Barron scored the go-ahead goal in the third period to help the Winnipeg Jets to a 5-2 comeback win against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Sunday.

Cole Perfetti backhanded the puck into the neutral zone, where Barron collected it before skating into the right circle to put the Jets in front 3-2 at 13:55.

“We were stuck out in our zone for quite a while,” Barron said. “Eventually it went out Cole’s side, and he made a really nice play to just get it by their [defense] and kind of some space opened up. I didn’t really have the steam left to kind of burn the guy wide. I just pulled up and let one go.”

The Jets scored four straight goals to rally in the third period for the second straight day. They scored five straight in the third to defeat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3 on Saturday.

“There's a lot of fight in this group,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “Again, the third periods in the three games are totally different. We weren't that happy in Dallas (a 4-1 loss), but we knew yesterday afternoon in Carolina we were playing well. Stay with it. And the same as tonight. I know we were down 2-1, but we were playing really well. We were playing fast, we were creating turnovers, we were creating chances. Just stay in the fight.”

Josh Morrissey and Vladislav Namestnikov each had a goal and an assist, and Laurent Brossoit made 17 saves for the Jets (39-16-5), who are 9-2-0 in their past 11 games.

JJ Peterka and Eric Robinson scored for the Sabres (29-29-4), who had won two in a row. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 30 saves.

“We made too many mistakes (in the third period),” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “It cost us. Lost some battles that you would like to have won and made some mistakes. That was the difference.”

Peterka finished off a passing sequence on the power play to give Buffalo a 1-0 lead at 17:33 of the first period. Jeff Skinner, who was in the slot, backhanded a pass to Kyle Okposo along the goal line, and Okposo quickly sent a seam pass to Peterka, who scored short side on a one-timer from the bottom of the right circle.

Nino Niederreiter tied it 1-1 at 19:54 when he took a pass from Morrissey down low and put it behind Luukkonen, who was at the top of the crease.

“Nino’s great around the net and he's not afraid to go there, that whole line,” Morrissey said. “So, I just tried to freeze the goalie and give it to him. He did the rest.”

Robinson put the Sabres ahead 2-1 at 9:20 of the second period. He received a no-look, backhand pass from Peyton Krebs in the slot and scored glove side on Brossoit.

“Just a nice play by ‘Krebsy’, kind of spinning around on the back end there to find me in the middle,” Robinson said.

Morrissey tied it 2-2 at 10:38 of the third period before Barron put the Jets in front with is goal.

Namestnikov then scored into an empty net at 18:39 to make it 4-2, and Sean Monahan added another empty-net goal at 19:06 for the 5-2 final.

“I don’t know if we were playing not to lose instead of trying to just go out there and play in the offensive zone and play defense by playing offense,” Robinson said. “It just felt like we were trying to hold onto it. You can’t do that against good teams.”

NOTES: The Jets are 18-9-3 on the road. It’s the first time in Jets/Atlanta Thrashers history that they have 18 wins through the first 30 road games of a season. … Winnipeg is 6-0-0 in the second half of back-to-back games this season. … Buffalo lost in regulation for the first time when leading after two periods (19-1-1). … Peterka, 22, scored his 20th goal of the season to become the fifth Germany-born player in NHL history to reach the mark before his 23rd birthday.