Ladd’s winner a work of art for the Jets

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This article was published 29/12/2014 (4163 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Andrew Ladd was quick to confess Sunday that of all his previous 172 regular-season goals in the NHL, none enjoyed quite the good fortune that brought about No. 173 Saturday in Minnesota.

“I don’t know about that one,” Ladd laughed after the Winnipeg Jets’ practice at the MTS Centre. “There were a lot of things that went right on that one — off the glass, off the net, off his head and in. Not that many in a row.”

The good fortune also had major impact. The goal, the result of a shot from the middle of the ice over the Minnesota net, off the glass, off the top of the net and off the back of the head of Wild goalie John Curry, decided the game at 2:47 of overtime at the Xcel Energy Centre, 4-3 in favour of the Jets.

“I don’t know if he (Wild defenceman Marco Scandella) got his stick on it (the original shot) or not, but I just saw Litts (teammate Bryan Little) battling at the blue-line and kind of figured if he was able to win that battle, I might be able to get an opportunity, so I kind of jumped back and found the puck and I just wanted to try to shoot through him and get it on net,” Ladd said. “I saw it sailing over (the net) to the glass and figured it might have a good hop back, hoping we’d get a chance in front or maybe it would deflect in.

“It’s one of those things where you just take that bounce and move onto the next game.”

That next game is against those same Wild tonight at the MTS Centre (7 p.m., TSN3, TSN 1290).

Ladd’s heroics on Saturday, continuing a Jets’ run of 9-1-4 in 14 games, had multiple layers.

That he was still in position to key the winning play said something about fortitude. With four minutes remaining in regulation time and the Jets on a power play, Minnesota’s Matt Cooke put the point of his wild high stick into Ladd’s face right between the eyebrows.

“I didn’t see it coming. I doubt there was intent there, but I haven’t seen the play,” Ladd said. “At that point in the game, tied, I doubt there was intent to get an infraction on his part.”

The foul came after some heated back-and-forth between the two opponents, and was a big miss by referees Gord Dywer and Dean Morton.

Ladd said anger over the missed call and the reckless play by Cooke had no bearing on his overtime effort.

“That’s part of the game,” he said. “The fact that it was missed was a little frustrating, but that’s also part of the game. They are going to miss some things like that. It was just about getting the two points and we were able to come away with them.

“At that time, a 3-3 hockey game when there’s that much on the line, I think your adrenaline should be as high as it’s going to be, anyways. So I don’t think so. It’s just part of the game, stuff that’s happened many times before and I’m sure will happen many times again.”

Ladd eventually took eight stitches to close the cut. Before that happened, he was held out of the game only briefly while athletic therapist Rob Milette stanched the flow.

“To be honest, it was more about trying to get the blood stopped enough to where you could (play),” Ladd said. “You can’t play if you’re bleeding. Mullet did a great job of stopping it. I’m not sure what he’s using. But we were able to stop it enough so it wasn’t dripping down my face and (I was) able to get back out there.”

The sequence fits quite comfortably into the Jets’ narrative of the season — messy at times but frequently obtaining a result.

Ladd has contributed his share, now with 12 goals and a team-leading 27 points through 36 games. He also leads the Jets with four game-winning goals.

“I think we want to come into every game knowing that no matter what, no matter if we’re sharp or have our hands or the bounces are going our way, we’re competing and battling at both ends of the ice,” the captain said. “If we do that, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win on a nightly basis.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca