Captain Brady Tkachuk came through in the crunch.

The Ottawa Senators’ captain fired home the winner in overtime to secure a thrilling 3-2 overtime comeback victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Monday night at the Canada Life Centre.

Defenceman Jake Sanderson tied it late with an extra attacker on the ice, and Tkachuk scored his second goal of the season by beating Connor Hellebuyck at 2:11 of three-on-three OT.

Linus Ullmark made 23 stops, and Nick Cousins also chipped in with a goal as the Senators closed out this three-game road trip with two wins.

“I’m just really happy with the two points,” said Tkachuk. “We lead the league in one-goal losses, and we made an emphasis on that 6-on-5 that we weren’t going to get denied. Maybe it took a little puck luck, but I think we were due for that.”

Back after having knee surgery, Hellebuyck has historically been a tough customer for the Senators. He made his 19th career start versus Ottawa with a 13-5-0 record, a 2.28 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage.

It was important for the Senators to find a way to win at the right time.

With Ullmark pulled for the extra attacker, Sanderson’s shot from the point bounced off the stick of Mark Scheifele and past Hellebuyck to tie it with 1:54 left in the third period.

ONE FOR THE ROAD?

The Senators wanted to close out this road trip on a high note. They haven’t had nearly enough of those lately. Ottawa came into this game six points out of the final wild card spot in the East, and was 2-6-0 in the last eight.

Coach Travis Green didn’t make any changes because he liked the way his club had been playing. That’s fair, but the Senators need wins.

“I loved how we stuck with it in the third period,” Green said. “I’ve been saying it a lot, but we’ve liked the way we’ve played as of late, and it’s not easy to stick with your game when you’re not getting the wins, and you’re playing decently. So I was happy that we did.”

The club was tied with the Jackets and the Sabres for the fewest points in the conference. The Senators talked about playing with confidence after letting two points slip away in a 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday.

Trailing 2-1 after 40 minutes, the Senators had contolled most of the play, but Hellebuyck made the big saves, and that allowed the Jets to hang around until they got their game together.

Logan Stanley gave the Jets the lead with 1:25 left in the second period. He fired a shot that beat Ullmark from the top of the circle. He has to have that one.

Pionk tied it up with a blast from the point that we don’t think Ullmark ever saw at 15:37 of the second. That appeared to deflect twice.

GOOD START, NO FINISH

Cousins’ fifth of the year opened the scoring at 10:47 of the second period. He took a pass through the slot from Kurtis MacDermid that bounced off Hellebuyck and beat him on the blocker side.

That was MacDermid’s first point of the season, and it came in his 300th career game.

The Senators were 0-for-3 on the power play through two periods, and that has been the club’s bread and butter throughout this season.

You have to take advantage of your opportunities, but that wasn’t the case for the Senators. Ottawa had back-to-back chances with the man advantage in the first period and couldn’t score.

On the second chance, the Senators had the puck in the Jets’ zone for the full two minutes and couldn’t score. There wasn’t even a whistle, but Ottawa didn’t get enough good shots.

“It feels awesome,” Sanderson told Prime Monday Night Hockey’s Andi Petrillo. “We’ve played a lot of tight games. Lately, we’ve been on the losing side, but tonight we stuck with it, we were resilient, and it paid off.”

NET SOME STOPS

Coming off a 24-save effort in the club’s 6-3 victory over the Jackets to start this trip, Ullmark returned to the net. He had posted a 2-1-0 record in three career games against the Jets with a .946 save percentage and a 2.34 goals-against average.

Ullmark had allowed 17 goals in his last five starts and had a 2-3-0 record in that stretch. Those numbers have to be better. He has to make big stops at big times in the game.

He did that after the Jets took the lead, and Ullmark’s timing was perfect because Winnipeg was pushing big time.

“I really liked our third period,” said Cousins. “It could have been easy for us to mail it in the way things have been going. We dug in for the third and played a really good road period.”

The Senators didn’t allow Ullmark to get tested much through the first 30 minutes.

bgarrioch@postmedia.com