Jets' Connor completes hat trick late in final frame to score winner against Ducks
Winnipeg sniper scores go-ahead goal with 53.5 seconds to go in 3rd period
Kyle Connor is starting to break out of a mini-slump.
Connor, who scored 47 goals last season, converted a perfect pass from forward Mark Scheifele, snapping a shot past Ducks goaltender John Gibson for just his fifth goal this year.
"My game wasn't too far off," Connor said. "I put a little more emphasis of getting to the net tonight, just being around more pucks there. A couple of good plays by Scheif [Scheifele] and Gags [Sam Gagner] too.
"So, just put yourself in good situations, that's all you can ask for. I wasn't getting too frustrated through the first 10, 12, 13 games there."
WATCH | Connor nets hat trick:
Winnipeg head coach Rick Bowness gave Connor his due for pushing through a quiet start to the season.
"That's perseverance," Bowness said. "That's what goal scorers do. A goal scorer gets frustrated for two reasons — one, they're not getting any chances... The other part of it is, you're getting chances and they're not going in. Either way, you've got to stay in the fight.
Trevor Zegras, who knotted the score at 2-2 for Anaheim, blamed himself for the game winner.
"We played 59 good minutes," he said. "I make a bad play on the wall and miss my guy going to the front of the net and the game's over. I would say it's kind of on me. There were some good things, some bad things. It's getting old, for sure."
"It's really heartbreaking," added Ducks coach Dallas Eakins. "We played a really solid team road game. We stood right in there, swinging, with one of the better teams in the league right now. And we had a missed puck-play and a missed assignment [in] the last minute and it cost us."
Connor Hellebuyck stopped 29-of-31 shots for the Jets (10-4-1) before 14,278 fans at Canada Life Centre.
Troy Terry also scored for Anaheim (5-11-1). Gibson made 29 saves in the loss.
Zegras tied the score at 2-2 just 28 seconds after Connor gave Winnipeg a 2-1 edge in the third period. Adam Henrique set up Zegras, who lifted the puck up over Hellebuyck.
The Jets knotted the score at 1-1 on the power play 12:32 into the second period. With Ducks defenceman Dmitry Kulikov in the box for tripping, Connor pounced on a Pierre-Luc Dubois rebound at the side of the net and sent the puck over Gibson's shoulder and into the net.
Anaheim opened the scoring midway through the first period. During a delayed penalty on Winnipeg's Neal Pionk, Terry fired a shot from inside the blue line that eventually bounced past a screened Hellebuyck.
