Bedard's 1st OT goal gives Blackhawks win against Jets

CHICAGO -- Connor Bedard scored his second goal of the game at 2:15 of overtime to give the Chicago Blackhawks a 2-1 win against the Winnipeg Jets at United Center on Wednesday.

Bedard took a pass in his own zone and skated up the ice before beating Connor Hellebuyck glove side with a wrist shot from the high slot. It was the first overtime goal for Bedard, who has eight points (three goals, five assists) during a season-long five-game point streak.

“It's always nice to score goals,” Bedard said. “Especially the crowd tonight (20,540), it was awesome. So, it was obviously nice to get the winner in overtime, and like I said, it always feels good to score goals. I don't know if I thought about it overly, but it feels nice.”

Petr Mrazek made 37 saves for the Blackhawks (11-22-1), who had lost two in a row and six of seven.

“Just be healthy,” Mrazek said. “That’s No. 1 thing, and we talked about it earlier as well. When I feel good, I know I can play the game how I want to play. Things we’re doing with (goaltending coach) Jimmy (Waite) on the ice during practices helps. That gets you a lot of confidence.”

Hellebuyck made 23 saves for the Jets (20-9-4), who were 0-for-4 on the power play but extended their point streak to six (4-0-2).

“Give Mrazek a lot of credit,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “He was outstanding. Four goal posts and a crossbar. It was just one of those nights for him. We certainly created enough opportunities in the hockey game. We didn’t score. Could we have done more on the power play? Yes, without a doubt. Could we have done a better job screening him a little more? Yeah, but what, we had 82 shot attempts? We created enough chances to win. It’s as simple as that.”

Bedard gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead at 15:57 of the first period. After his initial shot was stopped by Hellebuyck, he followed up with another shot that was saved before lifting in his third attempt under the goalie's right arm while falling to the ice.

“Yeah, it was a good play by [Philipp Kurashev] and [Connor Murphy], and I just kept kind of whacking it and eventually it went in,” Bedard said. “So, you’ve got to have some of those kind of garbage ones, and that might have been my first one like that. So it's good to see one of those go in.”

Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson praised the 18-year-old's maturity.

"I mean, he's a good kid,” Richardson said. “He really gets along with all his teammates, and he’s coachable. He listens and he asks questions, and obviously he’s trying to implement things like that into his game. He’s got a humble background. He’s really good person. I don’t think he really wants all the attention, but he’s going to have to get used to it. It’s going to be there.

“I think he really likes just going out and playing, and you can see when he celebrates a goal, he really enjoys it. But when he gets to the bench, he’s not a guy who’s taunting the other bench or the other team or anything like that. He’s just all business and he’s ready to go back out and do it the next shift.”

Morgan Barron tied it 1-1 at 3:47 of the second period, taking a pass from Axel Jonsson-Fjallby and scoring with a wrist shot between Mrazek’s pads from the left circle.

“I felt like we carried the play for a lot of the game,” Barron said. “For the first game after the (holiday) break, you obviously want to come away with a win, but to get a point and to play well, it’s going to help us kind of get back on track. We’ll be able to move on from that game. They’ve got some talent over there, as well.”

The Jets flew into Chicago earlier in the day.

“It was a long day, for sure,” Barron said. “No excuses. There’s a lot of teams around the League right now that kind of dealt with the same thing today. Yeah, you can definitely feel the legs getting a little heavier as the game went on. I would have liked to see us all kind of roll the lines a little bit, keep the shifts a little shorter, but we got stuck out there defending sometimes. It’s part of the game. It’s nothing unique to our team.”

NOTES: Bedard (18 years, 163 days) is the third-youngest player to score a regular-season overtime goal in NHL history, behind Sidney Crosby (18 years, 101 days) and Jordan Staal (18 years, 153 days). ... Jets forward David Gustafsson took part in morning skate but was scratched because of a lower-body injury. Dominic Toninato replaced him in the lineup and had one assist in 8:23 of ice time in his season debut. … Blackhawks forward Jason Dickinson went 16-for-23 on face-offs.