Game Recap: Jets 3, Wild 2

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Winnipeg Jets spoiled Marc-Andre Fleury’s 1,000th career game and extended their point streak to eight games with a 3-2 win against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Sunday.

Fleury became the fourth goalie in NHL history to play in 1,000 games, joining Martin Brodeur Brodeur (1,266), Roberto Luongo (1,044) and Patrick Roy (1,029). He is one win away from tying Roy (551) for second all-time.

“I don’t know. I’m kinda happy it’s over,” Fleury said. “I wish it was a win. Disappointing. I thought the guys played great tonight. Battled hard. It’s a better game than last night in Winnipeg. Two points is what’s important here. Obviously, very flattered by the reception from the crowd, from my teammates. It means a lot. I feel very fortunate that I’ve played for so long and I got to do what I love for many years. I’m lucky for that.”

Adam Lowry scored his 100th goal, and Dominic Toninato scored his first of the season for Winnipeg (22-9-4), which is 6-0-2 during its streak, and 10-1-2 in its past 13. Laurent Brossoit made 24 saves.

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.

Vladislav Namestnikov tied it 2-2 56 seconds later at 4:52 on the power play with a wrist shot from the right circle.

“There is never quit on this team,” Namestnikov said. “I think we know it’s a 60-minute game. A lot can happen in that time. We go down, we just keep with our business and keep going.”

Toninato put Winnipeg ahead 3-2, flipping in a rebound during a delayed penalty at 7:32. 

“You know what, even the run we’ve been on, there’s not a whole lot of separation in our division,” Lowry said. “We know how critical down the stretch divisional games are, and we know how hard it is to beat the same team on back-to-back nights. They make adjustments, generally the team that lost comes out pretty hard and are able to rebound. 

“…They got off to a great start, credit to them. But we were able to fight our way back. Even in the third, we give up one on special teams, and that’s kind of been our Achille’s Heel all year. We’ve talked about that being the difference in the game. But Vladdy answers right back with a power-play goal of our own and that gives us the momentum right back. And then on a delayed penalty we get the game-winning goal. It was big back-to-back nights for us.”

NOTES: The Jets became the fourth team in the expansion era (since 1967-68) to allow three or fewer goals in at least 25 consecutive contests. The other teams to do so are the Blue Jackets (25 games in 2019-20), Wild (35 games in 2014-15) and Blues (27 games in 2011-12). … Lowry reached the 100th goal milestone in his 656th game, 34 games faster than his father and veteran of over 1,000 career NHL games, Dave Lowry (622 games). … The Wild were without forwards Kirill Kaprizov (upper body) and Vinni Lettieri (upper body), and goaltender Filip Gustavsson (lower body), who were each injured in the game on Saturday. … Hynes said Lettieri is day to day but did not have updates on Kaprizov or Gustavsson.