WINNIPEG — The Winnipeg Jets’ season was on the line, but this time there was no last-second miracle comeback. The Jets’ 4-0 win in Game 5 was a 60-minute onslaught.

The Jets delivered their best game of the playoffs in their most important, must-win Game 5 — and earned one more chance to keep their season alive. It took Connor Hellebuyck’s second straight home shutout, a resurgent Winnipeg power play, a little bit of luck, and a level of desperation past Jets teams couldn’t have matched.

“That was everybody. That was our whole roster stepping up and knowing what the challenge was in front of us. And putting their best game on the ice,” said Jets coach Scott Arniel. “And it was everybody: forwards, D, goaltender. It was everybody stepping up, not wanting to be eliminated tonight. You could see it right from the puck drop, the opening shift. We didn’t take our foot off the gas.”

As hockey games go, Game 5 gave Winnipeg’s Canada Life Centre crowd everything it could have asked for. The Jets dominated the first period, outshooting Dallas 11-4 and creating scoring chances for top scorers Kyle Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers and Mark Scheifele that Jake Oettinger turned aside. Then, when Winnipeg lost its defensive coverage to open the second period, Hellebuyck came to their rescue. Matt Duchene found Thomas Harley undetected in the slot, Harley fooled Hellebuyck by taking the puck to his backhand and then Hellebuyck’s reflexes took over.

HELLE SAYS NO 🙅🙅🙅 pic.twitter.com/q18Fxx66sl

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 16, 2025

“I thought he was gonna tip it,” Hellebuyck said. “So I had a bit of a blocker reaction. Then he pulled it back, and he might have fanned on it a little bit, but he tried to go glove side.”

Five minutes later, Scheifele took a shot off the rush that hit Wyatt Johnston’s stick, then bounced off Harley’s skate and behind Oettinger. The Jets had their game-winning goal and, even though Ehlers and Vladislav Namestnikov’s third period power play goals were much nicer to look at, there is poetry in the way Winnipeg won Game 5: There’s no way the the Jets who lost to Vegas and Colorado in five games each could have beaten Dallas on Thursday. They’d have been blown out before a fluky, double-deflection goal like Scheifele’s could have done them any good.

Facing elimination in Game 5 against Vegas in 2023, the Jets were outshot 23-14 and outscored 4-0 by the second intermission. They pushed back harder against Colorado in the same circumstances last season, but trailed 3-2 after 40 minutes after recovering from a poor first period with a better effort in the second.

“You have to be able to push back when things aren’t going your way,” Rick Bowness said after the Vegas series. “We had no pushback. Their better players were so much better than ours tonight, they deserved to win. They were the better team in the regular season, (and) they were the better team in this series.”

Those words aren’t true anymore.

Winnipeg’s season was on the line, and this time, Winnipeg’s best players rose to the occasion. Scheifele scored a goal and an assist. Connor picked up two assists. Ehlers, whose playoff reputation falls short of his quality as a player, scored twice and is now tied for third in Jets playoff scoring with seven points in seven games. Hellebuyck, whose Game 6 could redefine his playoff narrative, delivered his best postseason performance.

Ironically, those accomplishments say more about the level the Jets have reached as a team than they do about the individuals involved.

Zoom out past Hellebuyck’s heroics, Scheifele’s fortunate bounce, Ehlers’ clever five-on-three shot, Namestnikov’s rocket wrist shot and Ehlers’ empty netter: The story of Game 5 is that the Jets won a game they couldn’t have won in recent history. There was no last-minute miracle because no miracle was necessary. There was no postgame tirade about a complete lack of pushback because no such tirade was needed.

It was also the first time in franchise history that they’ve won an elimination game outside of a Game 7, and their reward is the opportunity to do it all over again, only this time in much tougher circumstances. The Jets, mired in a nine-game playoff road losing streak, must beat the Stars in Dallas on Saturday. Win that, and then there’s the matter of Pete DeBoer’s 9-0 record in Game 7s.

“It’s unfortunate that we got into this position,” Hellebuyck said. “But you know what? I believe in this group, I believe in myself, and I believe in all our of our fans, so we’re going to continue to compete and leave it all out there.”

We’ll get back to Winnipeg’s unfortunate position in a moment. It’s worth noting that Ehlers and Arniel joined Hellebuyck in putting Jets fans at the heart of his motivation.

“It’s been so special to play here in front of this crowd,” Ehlers said. “We want to repay them by coming back and playing a Game 7 here.”

“We’d love for a chance to come back and do it in Game 7, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us in Game 6,” Arniel said. “To reward our fans and to give them a chance to see another game, that’s what we were looking to do.”

So, how do the Jets win their first road game of the playoffs? By dragging the series back to Winnipeg?

Step one is bottling what worked in Game 5. Hellebuyck locked in, the Jets’ power play came to life and Winnipeg got goals from the top and middle of the lineup. The shutout belonged partly to the goaltender, partly to better puck support in all three zones and even to a little bit of puck luck. Harley could have tried to deflect his shot, like Hellebuyck thought he wanted to do. Tyler Seguin could have gone bar-down with his second-period rush chance instead of going bar-and-out. But Harley and Seguin’s chances were two of Dallas’ few Grade A’s on the night. The Stars are a potent rush team; Winnipeg got through most of Game 5 without conceding odd-man rushes.

“We were quick with our decisions, we were quick with the reads, quick supporting the puck all over the ice,” Lowry said.

He also spoke to Winnipeg’s self-inflicted wounds in games 3 and 4.

“(We were) hurting ourselves within our team game, feeding into their transition, feeding into their offence,” Lowry said. “We talked about if we could get back to defending how we have all year, if we could get back to that fast transition, good puck support all over the ice, we’d put ourselves and Helly in a much better position to be successful.”

It’s important to consider the role matchups played in Dallas’ home ice advantage. Stars coach Pete DeBoer is good at using last change to keep his best players away from Lowry’s shutdown line — and targeting Scheifele’s line instead. Consider that the 8:37 Mikko Rantanen played against Lowry in Winnipeg in Game 5 is more than Rantanen played Lowry in both games in Dallas. Through five games, Winnipeg has outshot Dallas and kept the score to 1-1 during Lowry versus Rantanen minutes, while Rantanen has outscored Scheifele’s line 2-0 while keeping Winnipeg hemmed in its zone.

It’s a massive swing, with impacts at both ends of the ice. Every shift that Rantanen, Roope Hintz and Mikael Granlund beat Scheifele’s line in transition creates offence for Dallas and keeps three of Winnipeg’s top offensive players 200 feet from Jake Oettinger.

Alex Iafallo’s bump up is all of the way t othe top line:

Connor-Scheifele-Iafallo
Ehlers-Lowry-Vilardi
Niederreiter-Namestnikov-Perfetti
Tanev-Barron-Appleton https://t.co/buKMRnh6rQ

— Murat Ates (@WPGMurat) May 14, 2025

Remember Winnipeg’s last-minute line shuffle to start Game 4? Arniel deflected questions about his new line combinations, offering only that it was about “matchups” but it’s clear that he was trying to give Scheifele’s line some defensive help. Connor and Scheifele sometimes miss their assignments playing transition defence. Alex Iafallo was a safety valve.

It gets lost because Winnipeg lost Game 4, but Arniel’s thought process was mostly vindicated: Connor, Scheifele, and Iafallo sawed off their minutes, earning a 7-6 edge in shots and a 0-0 scoreline while playing together. From an X’s and O’s standpoint, Iafallo helps Connor and Scheifele by staying on the right side of the puck on breakouts and by staying on the right side of his check when the Stars are rushing up ice. There have been times when the Connor/Scheifele/Vilardi line gets caught up the ice — and DeBoer has leaned into that matchup to try to get offence for Rantanen, Granlund, and Hintz.

MIKKO RANTANEN CAN’T BE STOPPED 😅

📺: Watch Jets vs. Stars Game 3 on Sportsnet pic.twitter.com/1GfACUMgtf

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 11, 2025

So it’s not just about the hometown crowd.

If Winnipeg is meant to beat Dallas in Game 6, the Jets need to shut down the Stars’ dynamic rush attacks. To do that, Winnipeg needs Connor and Scheifele to play their best 200-foot games of the playoffs. Arniel can also try to help with lineup tweaks like he offered in Game 4, but it’s on his players to execute such that they don’t give up as many Grade A chances for free as they did earlier in the series.

“I think they were winning the battles the first couple games before this one, and we needed to step up,” Connor said, “And I think everybody did. It’s one game and we’ve got to re-focus (quickly) and get ready for the next one.”

Winnipeg’s suffocating 4-0 win in Game 5 means only that a series comeback is possible. It’s still the best result available to the Jets in Game 5, and a better result than Winnipeg’s core had achieved in recent years. The Jets are off to Dallas to see if they can achieve their first road win of the playoffs — and their season is on the line all over again.

(Top photo: Terrence Lee / Imagn Images)