So it all came down to one final contest to determine which of the Winnipeg Jets or St. Louis Blues would move on in the NHL’s 2024-25 post-season. The Canada Life Centre in Manitoba was rocking amongst a sea of white-cladded cheering fans, as the White Out was doing their best to motivate the hometown boys.
The Jets were without their top center as Mark Scheifele was unable to go on Sunday night, making their job that much more difficult…so lets find out how things went down in the NHL’s 200th Game 7 in the league history.
GAME RECAP
If a Winnipeg fan was asked what the worst possible start for the Jets would be, they might have come up with what actually happened when the linesman dropped the puck to kick off the action. St. Louis was instantly on the attack and when defenseman Dylan DeMelo pinched to try and stop a play at his own blueline, forward Kyle Connor didn’t cover for him allowing the Blues a quickly developed 2 on 1 rush. Goalie Connor Hellebuyck played the cross ice pass aggressively by driving out to limit the potential shooter’s scoring options, but defender Josh Morrissey couldn’t completely stop the return pass and St. Louis’ Jordan Kyrou tapped the puck into a wide open net. STL 1-0. The CLC crowd was silenced as the Jets were on their heels less than 2 minutes into the game and the road team continued to press that advantage. Six minutes later, Connor skated the puck up the middle of the ice, but bobbled it just before the opponent’s blueline, allowing a Blues’ 1 on 1 counter attack that saw Hellebuyck whiff on a wrist shot from the top of the left face-off circle. STL 2-0. To make things worse, the home team took another hit when Morrissey was injured taking or throwing a bodycheck, sending him to the locker room for the rest of the night. When the horn sounded for the 1st intermission, the True Northers had showed very little signs of life as they got out-shot 7-3 as the teams headed to the dressing room.
The middle frame saw much more evenly matched play as Winnipeg had a slight edge in shots (10-9), partly thanks to a re-jigging of the forward lines by head coach Scott Arniel. With Hellebuyck settling down in between the pipes and turning aside St. Louis’ scoring looks, the home crowd did their best to try and get the Jets back into the game. The first powerplay of the match went the True Northers’ way around the middle of the 2nd period and Winnipeg took advantage when Connor sent a pass to Cole Perfetti at the right side of the net, allowing the young winger the chance to do a nifty deflection to the top corner to give Jets’ fans some hope. STL 2-1. The franchises continued to trade chances for the rest of the period, but another late period goal against (35 secs left) hurt the comeback when the Blues’ Radek Faksa beat Bucky from the low left face-off circle (tender might have been a little deep in the net on that one). STL 3-1. To add to their woes, Winnipeg took a penalty right after and that would allow St. Louis to start the final period on a man-advantage.
The 3rd period gave the CLC crowd the opportunity to see the regular season Jets playing style emerge, as they dominated puck possession as they frantically tried to launch a comeback (shots 15-4). Despite the onslaught, the Blues’ Jordan Binnington kept thwarting the quality scoring chances Winnipeg was able to create. Things started to look pretty bleak as the seconds & minutes ticked off the clock and eventually the True North coaching staff went with the nuclear option of pulling the goalie with just under 3 minutes to play. The tactic paid immediate dividends when a Vladislav Namestnikov shot deflected off a Blues’ defender to finally fool Binnington. STL 3-2. With 1:56 potentially to go in their season, Winnipeg continued to push and had a great look when Nikolaj Ehlers set up Perfetti for a great scoring chance. With the seconds disappearing, a puck battle in the left offensive corner took away precious time but eventually the Jets were able to work the puck back to Ehlers at the point. He attempted to blast a shot, but fanned on it, sending the puck trickling into the slot. Fortunately, captain Adam Lowry was able to poke the puck back to Fly, who spotted a seam to send a pass cross-ice to Connor in the right face-off circle. With 2 seconds remaining on the scoreboard, Winnipeg’s best sniper quickly fired the puck towards the front of the net and young Perfetti reached out his stick to deflect it into the top of the net to tie the game up with only 1.8 seconds left in the 3rd. TIE 3-3.
Off to overtime where the True Northers continued to be the better team, as they outshot the opposition 11-4 in the first extra frame. That domination was aided by a puck over the glass penalty by St. Louis and while Winnipeg almost capitalized on a scramble in front, the game remained all knotted up. The Blues tested Hellebuyck a couple of times too, with the best being a nice denial of a Colton Parayko shot from the right face-off circle. The Jets had a great look to end things when Ehlers was sprung on a clear cut breakaway, but his move couldn’t open up Binnington’s pads enough to end the contest.
The 2nd overtime period saw St. Louis start to even the flow of play out a bit, possibly helped by the 5 remaining Winnipeg defensemen wearing down after playing a lot of minutes. In particular, Neal Pionk & Dylan Samberg were workhorses last night, logging over 40 minutes of ice time in the game all while putting in very impressive defensive performances. Just when you began to wonder exactly how long this deciding match would go, the Jets brought the fans to their feet when a point shot from Pionk deflected off a Blues’ defender, sending it towards the net front where Captain Lowry added his own tip to score the biggest goal in Winnipeg Jets’ franchise history. WPG 4-3.
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FINAL SCORE: WINNIPEG JETS 4 ST. LOUIS BLUES 3 (2OT)
FINAL STATS
Shots: 47-29 WPG / Hits: 73-49 WPG / Face-Offs: 55.8% STL / x Goals: 3.70 STL – 3.14 WPG /
MoneyPuck’s Deserve to Win: 51% STL / High-Medium Danger Scoring Chances: 14 to 11 WPG
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SCORING SUMMARY from ESPN
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SHOT CHART from MoneyPuck
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ADVANCED SKATER STATS from MoneyPuck
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GOALIE STATS from ESPN & MoneyPuck
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If you would like to dive deeper into the game’s stats, follow the links below to the game pages:
MoneyPuck: St. Louis Blues vs. Winnipeg Jets – Sunday May 4 2025 – MoneyPuck.com
NaturalStatTrick: St Louis Blues @ Winnipeg Jets, 2025-05-04
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BOJA’s Observations:
- Wow. Just wow. What a roller coaster of emotions on a Sunday night!!! The whole Winnipeg Jets team showed a lot of grit working their way out of a pretty big hole, after all only 5 teams in NHL history have managed to comeback from a 2 goal deficit in a Game 7 playoff game.
- Big ovation to Neal Pionk & Dylan Samberg for stepping up & logging huge amounts of ice time after the Josh Morrissey injury. The rest of the defensive core also deserve a pat on the back, that was a gutsy performance at a pivotal time.
- Connor Hellebuyck continued to feed the “Bucky sucks in the playoffs” narrative by letting in another low quality goal against, but he showed some character by continuing to battle and by the overtime period he started to show signs of that calm & confident tender that we all know so well. Still not sure why MoneyPuck isn’t using the St. Louis Blues’ entire 3.7 xG in their Goals Saved Above Expected calculation, but to me Hellebuyck played above average overall in Game 7.
- Couple things on the forwards, with Cole Perfetti having a monster outing with a pair of goals…including an NHL record for the latest tying goal in playoff history (he actually smiled when he scored that one & also when told by a reporter that he set that record). Kyle Connor started the game off poorly, failing to cover for his defenseman on the Blues’ opening goal and then turning over the puck on the 2nd. Yet KFC made up for it with a 3 assist night, including set ups of the game tying and game winning goals.
- Also, I think coach Scott Arniel should get some credit. At times this series, it appeared that he may have been getting out-coached but his decision to mix up the forward units mid-game paid big dividends as Winnipeg finally started to look like the dominating cycle team they were in the regular season.
Well, what a ride that was. At times, I was already planning the off-season articles in my head during the game, but I am certainly happy to hold off for a bit longer. 🙂
Not sure that the road to Lord Stanley’s Cup gets any easier now that the Winnipeg Jets have removed the 1st round monkey from their backs. The Dallas Stars are a very good team and as Central Division rivals, the two franchises are certainly more than familiar with each other. Will look at the upcoming series in a future article, but for the time being just enjoy the glow that comes along with the True Northers advancing to the 2nd round in stunning fashion.
UP NEXT: Dallas Stars @ Winnipeg Jets – Wednesday, May 7th @ 8:30 pm CST
