Tuesday night in Dallas, the Winnipeg Jets played their best road game of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
They still lost.
Jake Oettinger was brilliant in goal, while Mikael Granlund scored a hat-trick as the Dallas Stars took down the Jets 3-1 to take a 3-1 lead in their second round series.
The Jets had more chances, more shots, and more hits, but the Stars led the only category that really matters with three goals in the Game 4 victory.
“I thought we played a good hockey game,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “We had 70 shots attempts and scored one goal. If we can’t find more than one goal, we’re not gonna win hockey games, especially against this hockey team. So, I liked a lot of what we did 5-on-5.
“We just didn’t put the puck in the net and that’s the bottom line. This time of year you got to find a way to score goals. They’re not going to be pretty. They’re probably going to have to be ugly ones and we’re going to have to find a way to do that.”
For the first time in the playoffs Connor Hellebuyck allowed less than five goals in a road game, but he gave up a goal in the first period on a long shot.
“It was a damn perfect shot, just above my pad, below my glove,” said Hellebuyck. “I’m doing my best. Sometimes it’s a heartbreak, but all it takes is one little change, one little bounce, and things can start going our way. And we’re a good team, so we can really rack them up, but we just got to worry for one at a time.
“We’re going to do this as a team and we’re not out of it yet.”
The Jets scored their lone goal right after a penalty expired but are now just 1-for-16 on the man advantage in the series.
“I think at the end of the day, we got to score on our chances,” said Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers who scored their only goal. “It’s as simple as that.”
The Jets were the NHL’s best road team in the regular season but are still winless on the road for the entire playoffs. They’ve lost nine straight postseason road games overall and all five in these playoffs in getting outscored 25-8.
“If I had the answer to why, we would have gotten one at some point,” Ehlers said.
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Arniel made changes to all four of his forward lines ahead of Game 4.
“I thought it was great,” he said. “Worked out good. We matched up well. All the lines had zone time.”
The Jets have now lost five straight Game 4’s going back to the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs and are now in a must win situation for Thursday’s Game 5 in Winnipeg.
“Don’t lose your last game,” said Arniel. “Real simple – don’t lose your last game.
“We’re gonna have to go home and win the next one so we come back here. So we got to get the job done, focus in on this next game. Game 5 that’s what it’s all about.”
The Jets had a couple decent early chances before Dylan DeMelo took an ill-advised penalty for holding Granlund’s stick in the neutral zone and the Stars made Winnipeg pay.
The Jets cleared the puck down the ice after the ensuing faceoff but Granlund gathered the puck in his own end, skated through the neutral zone and cut into the Jets end before sending a low wrister on goal from the high slot that eluded Hellebuyck to open the scoring at the 8:36 mark.
It was the kind of shot that Hellebuyck should have stopped but instead, the Jets fell behind the eight-ball as they so often have in their previous road games this postseason.
Winnipeg carried the bulk of the play for the opening 20 minutes, outshooting the Stars 10-5 but were unable to get one past Jake Oettinger.
The Jets began the second period with a minute left on a Tyler Seguin holding penalty and just moments after the penalty expired, Winnipeg got on the board.
Kyle Connor got the puck to Ehlers on the half-wall before Ehlers sent a shot on goal that surprised Oettinger and beat the goalie five-hole to tie the game 62 seconds into the middle frame.
Each team would fail on a power play look later in the period as the game stayed deadlocked, each team taking turns controlling play.
Winnipeg had a great chance to take the lead late on an odd-man rush as Alex Iafallo carried the puck below the goal line before sending a pass in front to Connor but the Jets’ sniper shot the puck into the left pad of Oettinger.
That proved to be a huge moment because the Stars regained the lead exactly one minute later.
After Neal Pionk pinched at the Stars blueline, Nino Niederreiter covered the point for him but he failed to get the puck in deep, turning it over to Mikko Rantanen. He sent the puck ahead to Granlund to jump-start a 2-on-1 that Granlund finished by rifling a shot top-shelf past Hellebuyck to make it 2-1 with 2:08 to go in the second.
Winnipeg maintained their edge in shots on goal after 40 minutes, outpacing Dallas 20-13.
The Stars got a golden opportunity to put the game away just 3:26 into the third when Haydn Fleury received a double-minor for high-sticking after catching Roope Hintz in the mouth.
Winnipeg wound up with a great look about two minutes into the penalty when Connor got sprung on a partial breakaway but he wasn’t able to get much on his shot as it got turned aside by the pad of Oettinger.
With just seconds to go in the double-minor, Matt Duchene rang a shot off the crossbar and it looked like Winnipeg would get the kill but after the puck hit the crossbar it landed on the stick of Miro Heiskanen at the point. Playing in his first game since January, Heiskanen slid the puck to Granlund for a one-timer from the faceoff dot to Hellebuyck’s left and it beat Hellebuyck to make it 3-1 with 12:37 remaining.
It was the first career playoff hat-trick for Granlund, who had scored just one goal in ten games this postseason coming into the night and 12 goals in 69 playoff games dating back to 2014.
Hellebuyck made multiple big saves down the stretch of the third to keep his team in it, leading to a huge power play with 4:53 to go. But Winnipeg failed to register a shot in the two minute chance, with the best look coming after the penalty expired when Pionk was stopped on a low-percentage look from high in the slot.
Ahead of the ensuing faceoff with 2:51 remaining, the Jets pulled Hellebuyck for an extra attacker, needing to recapture the 6-on-5 magic that kept them alive in Game 7 of their first round series with St. Louis.
But the Jets never really threatened to score as the clock ran out on another road loss in the playoffs.
Oettinger outplayed Hellebuyck in this duel of top American goalies, with Dallas’ netminder turning aside 31 shots while Hellebuyck made 21 saves in defeat, though it was the first time in Winnipeg’s nine-game postseason road losing skid that Hellebuyck had allowed less than four goals.
Special teams also remain an issue for the Jets, who went 0-for-3 on the power play, while Dallas scored twice with the man advantage.
The Jets will try and save their season Thursday night in Game 5 of the series in Winnipeg. The puck will drop around 8:50 p.m. with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB starting at 6:00 p.m