WINNIPEG — Blake Wheeler laughed when asked if the Winnipeg Jets should take a page from the Anaheim Ducks’ playbook. “To get behind and try to come back with two minutes left?” he asked.

In all three games of this first-round playoff series, the Ducks have trailed by a goal entering the third period. In all three games, they have won. The last two times, they did it in dramatic fashion. Jakob Silfverberg scored the winner with 21 seconds left in Game 2. Ryan Kesler tied it with 2:41 left in regulation and Rickard Rakell scored the winner in overtime in Game 3.

The Ducks have become the first NHL team to win three games in a row in one series when trailing entering the third, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Only one other team has ever won three such games in one series: the 1943 Boston Bruins, who came back to beat the Montreal Canadiens in Games 1, 3 and 5 of the semifinals, all in OT.

Needless to say, this is a rarity, not a strategy.

“Believe me,” said Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau, whose team has led for 11:21 of the series and trailed for 67:19, “if I could get them to flip the switch earlier, I would.”

The Ducks have mastered the art of the third-period comeback. (AP) More

But this is what the Ducks do. In the regular season, they won 18 games in which they trailed at some point in the third period, setting an NHL record. They won 12 games when trailing entering the third period, tying an NHL record. It was a big reason they finished first in the Western Conference.

You can call it a fluke. But it’s only part fluke. It’s also part psychology. The Ducks don’t necessarily have any defining trait that makes them comeback kings – purer character, deeper desire, grittier grit. But they have good players, and they have confidence. The more you come back, the more you believe you can come back, the more your opponents worry you’ll come back. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“It’s not just our team,” Boudreau said. “It’s all sports. How often do you see a team in football. There’s 1:10 left, and they’ve got the ball on the 30, and you know that they’re going to go all the way down and score? I mean, it’s not that they do it all the time …”

(Note: The Ducks went 12-23-0 when trailing after two periods in the regular season, so they haven’t done it all the time, either.)

“… but there’s certain quarterbacks that will always lead your team down and score, and you know it’s going to happen,” Boudreau said. “I think it’s just the adrenaline that gets going, and once you get on a positive roll and you start to believe it, usually the other team says, ‘Uh-oh, here they come,’ and your team says, ‘We’re going to do it. We’re going to get it done.’ It’s sports.”

Yep. Listen to Wheeler. The Jets have made some critical mistakes, and the Ducks have taken advantage, and it isn’t all by accident.

“We’ve got a group of guys that care so much about getting the job done and care so much about each other, you can almost see a little bit of tightness on our side wanting it so bad,” Wheeler said. “Some of the failures in recent memory kind of come into play there, too.

“On the flip side, you can see the confidence that they have. They’re down a goal, but they’ve done it to us. They’ve done it to other teams. You can tell they’re comfortable in that position.

“That’s where experience comes into play. If we had closed out one of these games, you might see a little different confidence level with us in those situations. But that confidence is earned. At the end of the day you’ve got to close the door, and we’re getting closer by the minute.”

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