Close to a wild-card spot, Jets battle playoff-bound Stars

The Winnipeg Jets are one point out of the second Western Conference wild-card playoff spot as they prepare to face the host Dallas Stars on Thursday night.

The Jets (32-30-12, 76 points) have won four of their last five, including a 4-3 overtime road win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.

Winnipeg got the victory despite blowing a 3-1 second-period lead.

"You've got to perform under pressure. I think that's the biggest thing," Jets captain Adam Lowry said. "We know every game is important. We came and talked about it after the first intermission. We don't have time to just squander points. We can't have these letdowns where we play one great game, and then come down and take a breath. So, it was a big win for us. You know, tight game. You've got to give Chicago credit. I thought they played a pretty good game."

Kyle Connor's 34th goal of the season, 33 seconds into OT, was set up by Mark Scheifele, who won the faceoff to open the extra period.

"We've seen a lot of that over the years," Jets coach Scott Arniel said of Scheifele's pass in overtime. "That just, it's kind of been his whole season. When we need a big moment, a big play, he certainly responded. It was a heck of a play."

Connor also had an assist, defenseman Josh Morrissey had a goal and an assist, Scheifele had three assists and Cole Perfetti and Isak Rosen also scored.

Connor Hellebuyck made 18 saves.

The playoff-bound Stars (44-19-12, 100 points) are 1-4-2 in their last seven after losing 6-3 to the host Boston Bruins on Tuesday night.

Dallas, which opens a five-game homestand Thursday, went 1-2-1 on its four-game trip.

"Probably our worst of the road trip," said Matt Duchene, who had a goal. "We're playing some desperate teams right now and they're playing at a level that we're not playing at right now, in terms of where our ‘A' game is."

The Stars trailed 2-0 after the first period. Captain Jamie Benn and Duchene's markers in the second tied it 2-2. But the Bruins regained the lead just 13 seconds into the third period and scored twice more before Wyatt Johnston's power-play goal with 58 seconds remaining.

"Not enough," Johnston said. "We're playing a lot of hungry teams who are fighting for their lives. You can't expect to be perfect and dominate a full 60 every day, but when we play our way more often than we don't we're really successful, so it's just a matter of doing that."

Johnston also had an assist, Jason Robertson two and Jake Oettinger stopped 18 shots.

"It wasn't one of our better games," Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan said. "There are losses, and then there are losses where you get outplayed. In the first, they didn't come out and overwhelm us, but they were up 2-0. We just didn't do some things. We self-inflected some wounds, we lost some battles at key times and we got ourselves down."

Michael Bunting sat out with a lower-body injury.

--Field Level Media