The Jets defeated the Wild 4-2 in Winnipeg on Saturday and completed the home-and-home series sweep.
“Going into both games, you knew it was going to be a hard-fought battle,” Jets coach Rick Bowness said. “There wasn’t much room out there. Kind of [a] low-event game for a while. That’s the way both teams play. John (Hynes) has got these guys playing really, really hard. They’re tough to play against.”
Marcus Foligno and Freddy Gaudreau scored for Minnesota (16-15-4), which had won seven straight at home. Fleury made 26 saves.
“It’s disappointing you lost the game for sure, but there’s lot of positives to take out of it,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “As you said, just how hard we fought. I thought we were right there. We had an opportunity to win the game. But I think when you get into these tight games like this against a really good team, it comes down to details, and tonight that was probably the difference in the game.
Ryan Hartman appeared to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead at 16:44 of the first period with a wrist shot from the left circle. But Winnipeg successfully challenged for offside prior to the goal.
Foligno made it 1-0 at 18:07, tipping in a Jared Spurgeon point shot.
“Better effort (today),” Foligno said. “It’s a tough game to lose, but all in all, it was a good game. It had everything. It’s tough to lose it for Flower, like that in that sense, 1,000 games, (heck) of an accomplishment. You want to win it for him. Disappointing the way it had to end there.”
Lowry tied the game 1-1 at 2:08 of the second period, backhanding a rebound into the open net behind Fleury.
“It’s something I’ll look back on and be proud of,” Lowry said of career goal No. 100. “I’m not necessarily known really for my scoring, so it’s nice to be able to contribute once in a while. Hopefully, I can score another 100 in this league, and it doesn’t take me a decade.”
Gaudreau made it 2-1 with a one-timer on the power play off a pass by Marcus Johansson at 3:56 of the third period.
Winnipeg answered with two goals in 2:40.