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Dustin Byfuglien scores in overtime, Jets beat Flames 4-3 in pre-season

WINNIPEG — Bryan Little tied the game late in the third and Dustin Byfuglien’s second of the night came in overtime as the Winnipeg Jets beat the Calgary Flames 4-3 on Friday in pre-season play.
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WINNIPEG — Bryan Little tied the game late in the third and Dustin Byfuglien’s second of the night came in overtime as the Winnipeg Jets beat the Calgary Flames 4-3 on Friday in pre-season play.

The Flames had dominated for much of the night.

Brett Pollock, Dillon Dube and Alan Quine scored for the Flames (1-3-1), while Blake Wheeler had the other for the Jets (2-1-0).

The Flames five pre-season games include two just completed in China, as the NHL says it is trying to broaden the game’s appeal. Since they took their best, that kept a lot of veterans off the ice Friday.

The odds should have been tilted in Winnipeg’s favour, with the pre-season debut of forwards Wheeler, last season’s top Jets’ scorer, Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor, as well as 2017-18 Vezina runner-up Connor Hellebuyck in goal.

But rust was evident as the Jets struggled on their first power-play opportunity early in the opening period, which included about 30 seconds of a 5-on-3. They struck out on another later in the period.

It was the Flames who scored first when Pollock flipped one over Hellebuyck’s right shoulder for his first goal of the pre-season in his second game.

Connor almost put the Jets on the board, but with no time left on the clock, at the end of the first.

Dube capitalized on Calgary’s first power play of the game, also a 5-on-3, with a wrister at 3:36 of the second, but Wheeler finally found a hole in Tyler Parson’s glove at 6:53 to make it 2-1.

Parsons, with only one pro-season under his belt, was solid in his third pre-season game for Calgary.

But he had help, with the Jets managing only 11 shots by the end of the second to 23 for the Flames. The Flames outshot the Jets 14-3 in the second period alone.

Quine extended Calgary’s lead once more with his wrister through traffic at 11:21.

Byfuglien gave fans something to cheer about before the period ended with a sharp-angle shot from Parson’s glove side that narrowed the lead once more at 16:34.

Netminder Jeff Glass made his pre-season debut for the Flames in the third period and gave up the tying goal at 18:59, when a perfectly placed Little slammed one in from right in front of the net.