Winnipeg Jets drop home preseason finale 2-1 in OT to Oilers

It was a game full of young players trying to make an impression and veterans looking to shake off rust.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the most exhilarating preseason contest as the home fans watched the Edmonton Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets 2-1 in overtime Tuesday night.

After a fairly uneventful first 13 minutes, during which both teams failed on a power play look, the Jets opened the scoring thanks to a fortunate bounce.

Edmonton’s Josh Brown had the puck in his own corner before throwing a bad pass up the middle of the zone that landed on the stick of Nino Niederreiter. The veteran skated back to the point before firing a wrist shot wide that bounced off the end boards and right to the stick of Alex Iafallo for a tap-in at the 13:04 mark.

The Oilers answered at the 15:50 mark when a point shot from Atro Leppanen squeezed through the legs of Domenic DiVincentiis and trickled over the goal line.

Neither team found the back of the net in the second period with Edmonton outshooting Winnipeg 11-7. DiVincentiis had to make a few saves of a relatively high quality to keep the game tied.

As the third period rolled along, it began to feel like nobody was going to score again. Winnipeg managed to string together a few decent looks later in the period but the game stayed deadlocked at one through 60 minutes.

Dylan Samberg took a slapshot in the offensive end but it missed the net and rimmed around the boards, allowing Zach Hyman to skate onto it in the Winnipeg end.

He held it for a moment as Viljami Marjala came off the bench (well before his man had arrived at the bench) and into the zone. Hyman then slid it across to Marjala and the Finnish prospect wired a shot high over the shoulder of DiVincentiis.