Down 4-0 With 2:39 Left. The Winnipeg Jets Somehow Won.
Imagine leading 4-0 with less than three minutes remaining. Your goalie has stopped everything. The crowd is ready to celebrate.
Then you lose.
That's exactly what happened to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
The Winnipeg Jets scored four goals in the final 2:39 of regulation before winning 5-4 in overtime — completing the latest four-goal comeback in NHL history.
Montreal Had Every Reason to Celebrate
Owen Beck and Josh Anderson scored in the first period. Cole Caufield added two power-play goals, putting Montreal ahead 4-0 early in the third.
Canadiens goalie Jacob Fowler stopped the first 37 shots he faced. He would finish with 42 saves.
With less than three minutes left, Montreal appeared to have the game wrapped up.
Winnipeg apparently had other plans.
Four Goals. Two Minutes and Six Seconds. Total Chaos.
2:39 remaining: Tyrel Bauer scores his first NHL goal. Montreal leads 4-1.
1:57 remaining: Morgan Barron scores at 18:03. Suddenly, it's 4-2.
1:00 remaining: With Stuart Skinner pulled for an extra attacker, Kyle Connor blasts home a one-timer. It's 4-3.
0:33 remaining: Connor fires another one-timer. The puck deflects off Noah Dobson's stick and goes in.
4-4.
Four unanswered goals. Just 2:06 between the first and fourth.
A comfortable Montreal victory had turned into an absolute nightmare.
And Winnipeg wasn't finished.
The Overtime Winner That Completed the Impossible
At 3:30 of overtime, Gabriel Vilardi stripped Lane Hutson of the puck along the boards.
Adam Lowry found Dylan Samberg in front.
Samberg fired blocker side.
Jets win, 5-4.
From a four-goal deficit to an overtime victory, Winnipeg had pulled off something the NHL had never seen this late in a game.
The Records Make It Even Crazier
Those four goals in 2:06 were the fastest four in Jets franchise history, breaking the previous mark of 2:16 set on November 9, 1984.
The previous NHL record for the latest four-goal comeback belonged to the Los Angeles Kings, whose 2007 rally against Dallas began at 52:46 — much earlier than Winnipeg's.
The victory also snapped the Jets' nine-game losing streak (0-7-2).
Montreal (9-3-3), meanwhile, extended its point streak to eight games. But that offered little comfort.
"A four-goal lead, there's no excuse for this," Caufield said.
The Twikup Take
Winnipeg entered the final three minutes staring at another defeat. Instead, the Jets delivered four goals, rewrote NHL history and escaped with an overtime victory.
For Montreal, it was the kind of collapse that will be difficult to forget.
Some teams need 60 minutes to win. Winnipeg needed 2:39 to make history.
Image: AI-generated illustration.