What promises to be a very interesting season of Winnipeg Jets hockey got off to an exciting start Friday night at Canada Life Centre.

After a back-and-forth affair that featured strong goaltending, a record-extending goal, and even a fight, overtime was required to solve things between the home side and the visiting Boston Bruins.

Unfortunately for the home fans, JJ Peterka scored with 1:39 left in the OT session to lift Boston to a 4-3 win.

The Jets were just 98 seconds away from the victory when Elias Lindholm notched the equalizer late in the third period to force overtime.

“For the first game of the year, I thought we were real good, real good in a lot of areas,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “It wasn’t a complete 60 (minutes) but there was a lot of really good things. I loved our start. They kinda turned it in a little bit of some transition there in probably the last five (minutes) of the first, but I thought each period we came out hard.

“A tough way to lose it but for our first game there was a lot of good stuff.”

Jets forward Kyle Connor scored a marker in the second period to break his own NHL record with a goal in his last nine straight season openers.

“It’s a long off-season,” said Connor. “Excited to be back. I don’t know. I keep that going, bottle it up. Yeah, it’s good to be back.”

Connor had several great scoring chances throughout the game and hit the goal post in the overtime period.

Dylan DeMelo and Mario Ferraro had the other goals for Winnipeg in the loss.

First round draft pick Viggo Björck and defenceman Tyrel Bauer both made their NHL debuts in the season opener.

Bauer got into his first NHL fight in his first NHL period when he scrapped Mark Kastelic just seven minutes into the contest.

“They’ve got a very heavy fourth line,” Arniel said. “They got a couple big defencemen and you got to counter-punch it sometimes. That’s what Tyrel is good at. And that’s what he does well, but he also can play too.”

Bauer has already won over the respect of his new teammates.

“From me just meeting him, that’s a guy you’d run through a train for,” said Jets goalie Stuart Skinner. “He’s that type of player that’ll do anything for the guys.”

Björck had two shots on goal in just over 15 minutes of ice time in his debut and even saw some time on the penalty kill.

“He was going head-to-head with one of their sort of top offensive lines,” said Arniel. “And I thought he did real well. I mean, just every day for him is a learning day and as he gets into these situations, he seems like a kid that can really sort of mentally handle a lot of that stuff.”

The Jets came out firing, outshooting the Bruins 8-1 over the first six minutes. They had a power play that nearly broke the ice and had several good looks to score, including a great net drive by rookie Bjorck that forced Jeremy Swayman to make an acrobatic cross-crease save.

Not long after, Winnipeg opened the scoring thanks to an unlikely source.

Morgan Barron collected a loose puck behind the Boston net and slid it back to the point for DeMelo. He one-timed a wobbly puck and it knuckled past JSwayman at the 4:52 mark.

It was just his 17th goal in his 460th regular season game as a Jet.

Just over two minutes later, the other Jet making his NHL debut got involved.

Bauer, well-known for dropping the gloves in the AHL with the Manitoba Moose, fought Kastelic at the end of his second NHL shift, bloodying the Bruins tough guy in the process.

At this point, the crowd was having a great time, but momentum would soon swing in Boston’s favour.

The Bruins got on the board with a goal that was quite similar to DeMelo’s. Morgan Geekie tracked down a loose puck along the far boards in the Jets’ end before sending a short pass to Hampus Lindholm. The big blueliner blasted a knuckler from the point that dipped under the glove of Skinner and into the net at the 9:23 mark.

With just under five minutes to go in the first, Boston would take the lead. The Bruins passed the puck around the top half of Winnipeg’s end before Kastelic got it in the slot. He deked towards the net and wasn’t able to beat Skinner, but the puck slid to James Hagens on the other side of the crease, and he jammed it home for his first NHL goal in his fourth career game.

Boston would take the 2-1 lead into the second after Winnipeg outshot them 12-9 in the opening 20 minutes.

But it wouldn’t take long for the Jets to level the score in the second.

Mere seconds after Elias Lindholm was called for tripping, Connor had the puck at the faceoff dot and slid it down low to Cole Perfetti. Perfetti took in front and tried to jam it home, creating a scramble that resulted in the puck finding the stick of Connor, who shot it through Swayman to tie the game 1:50 into the second.

The Jets had to kill two penalties of their own before the period was through and did so successfully, leading to a go-ahead goal in the waning seconds from another unlikely source.

The play began with Connor skating the puck into the Boston zone and almost losing it before it drifted into the slot and found the stick of Adam Lowry. The captain then sent it back to Ferraro at the point, and his wrist shot eluded Swayman to make it 3-2 with 12 seconds left in the period.

Ferraro, playing in his first game as a Jet, scored 24 times in 490 games as a Shark.

The Jets had a good chance to add to their lead on a power play with eight minutes gone in the third but were unable to get one past Swayman.

Boston, meantime, started to pepper Skinner with shots as they attempted to tie the game, even hitting the post with roughly seven minutes left but the new Jets netminder stood tall.

The Bruins pulled Swayman for an extra attacker with 2:35 on the clock, and just under a minute later, they found the equalizer.

After Boston won an offensive zone faceoff, David Pastrnak got the puck along the boards and fired the puck to the slot where Elias Lindholm steered it past Skinner to level the score with 1:38 left, sending the game to overtime.

Connor nearly won it when he dangled two Bruins but his subsequent shot hit the post.

Later in the extra frame, Peterka got behind the Jets’ defence and buried one five-hole on Skinner to end it.

The Jets outshot the Bruins 33-30.

Game two of the Jets’ season goes Sunday afternoon in Detroit. The puck drops just after noon with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB starting at 10 a.m.