The goal was the 300th of Connor’s career, making him the third player in Jets/Thrashers history to hit the 300-goal mark behind Scheifele (353) and Ilya Kovalchuk (328).
“Just a pretty cool milestone,” Connor said. “Once you look back on your career, that’s kind of the stuff you’ll remember. But right now it’s focusing on winning, trying to be the best player I can, and helping out.”
Connor scored his second goal at 15:23 of the third period, beating Vejmelka on the blocker side with a one-timer to cut the lead to 3-2.
“I think we just knew that we needed to be better,” Connor said on the comeback. “I think we were on our toes more, jumping and making plays and hemming them in.”
Barron scored just 25 seconds later, beating Vejmelka with a snap shot to the glove side to tie it 3-3 at 15:48 and send it to overtime.
“That first period was ugly, it was really ugly,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “We got better in the second, certainly dominated in the third. But at the end of the day, you can’t play two periods in this League and look to have success.”
Crouse opened the scoring 1-0 at 5:20 of the first period. Guenther skated in from the blue line and shot through the legs of a Jets defenseman to put the puck on Hellebuyck. The rebound of Guenther’s shot found Crouse in front for the slap shot, beating Hellebuyck on the blocker side.
“We made it interesting on ourselves,” Crouse said. “Definitely not the way we wanted the third period to go, but credit to our group, that’s not easy. They scored two right away and then we went right into OT pretty much, so credit to the group for having the right mindset and being able to get the win.”