Jets, Khabibulin Put Red Wings on Hold

Don’t start that plane to Phoenix yet, please. Nikolai Khabibulin isn’t quite ready to go.

Khabibulin made sure the fans of Winnipeg can see at least one more home game before their Jets move to Arizona and become the Coyotes, making 51 saves to help them to a 3-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings, who came away shaking their heads to try to clear away some bad memories.

Detroit still holds a 3-2 lead in their first-round series, but Game 6 is in Winnipeg on Sunday and Khabibulin will be ready.

“I guarantee that’s one of the best games you’ll ever see a goaltender play,” Jet forward Darrin Shannon said. “You hear a lot of talk about great games by goalies, but this was above any of that. Niki was unbelievable.”

Detroit has been victimized in the playoffs by hot goalies in each of the last two seasons.

Two years ago, the Red Wings were knocked out by San Jose in the first round when Arturs Irbe was phenomenal in the Sharks’ goal. Last year, Detroit was swept in the Stanley Cup finals by New Jersey, which got great goaltending from Martin Brodeur.

“A hot goalie is the one thing that can beat any team,” said Red Wing Coach Scotty Bowman, trying to become the first in NHL history to win Cup championships with three teams. “It’s the unexpected goal, the deflected shot that has to go in. That didn’t happen for us tonight.”

Not that there weren’t chances.

The swarming Red Wings outshot Winnipeg, 12-3, in first period, 20-4 in the second and 52-19 for the game. Detroit has exactly doubled the Jets’ output, outshooting Winnipeg, 188-94, through the first five games.

For Khabibulin, it was a case of momentum.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen, because I was awful in warmups,” he said. “But when I stopped the 2-on-1 early, I knew I had good luck. I don’t think I’ve ever played a better game. I know I’ve never made that many saves.

“I felt better after every shot I saved. But give the guys credit, they did a great job of clearing rebounds.”

Shannon, Dave Manson and Alexei Zhamnov scored for the Jets. Dino Ciccarelli scored for Detroit, which had the NHL’s best record in the regular season, set a league record with 62 victories and is trying to win the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1955, the league’s longest drought.

Winnipeg’s mission was simple.

“Our goal tonight was to get to Game 6, and we did that, thanks to a little bit of luck and a lot of Niki,” Jet forward Keith Tkachuk said. “I don’t know how he did it tonight. That was amazing.”

Manson’s goal, from just inside the blue line, deflected off the stick of Viacheslav Fetisov and sailed past goalie Chris Osgood to break a 1-1 tie at 6:52 of the third period.

Zhamnov scored his second goal of the series into an empty net with 41 seconds remaining.