Three things - Ehlers three point night leads Jets past Sens

WINNIPEG – Nikolaj Ehlers had three points as the Winnipeg Jets beat the Ottawa Senators 4-2 on Saturday at Canada Life Centre. Mark Scheifele (1G, 1A) and Kyle Connor (1G, 1A) also had multi-point nights for the Jets. Connor has 9G, 11A for 20 points in the month of December, Only three other players have 20-plus points this month: Nathan MacKinnon (7-17—24 in 12 GP), Leon Draisaitl (7-14—21 in 11 GP) and Brayden Point (8-13—21 in 10 GP). Connor Hellebuyck made 33 saves for his league leading 23^rd win of the season, the Jets will host Nashville on Monday.

USUAL SUSPECTS

Ottawa kept the Jets top line off the scoresheet for almost 33 minutes on Saturday. Winnipeg was down 2-0 when Mark Scheifele spotted Kyle Connor is the high slot, Connor delivered a low shot past Mads Sogard to cut the deficit to one at 12:46.

At 15:01, it was Nikolaj Ehlers with some magic, as he hit Scheifele with a nice pass at the Sens blueline and Scheifele beat Sogard with a backhand to tie the game at two. Scheifele now has 10 goals in the month of December.

"It's the Christmas month so you gotta enjoy it. But it's been great obviously," said Scheifele.

"Just happy to play with the guys that I play with, they're absolutely fantastic and we just have to keep it going."

In the third period, the Jets went to the power play Nikolaj Ehlers found Gabe Vilardi at the far post and the Jets scored their league leading 37^th power play goal.

Ehlers then got his second goal in three games after taking a beautiful pass from Logan Stanley in the neutral zone, hit the Sens blueline and cut into the middle before beating Sogard low blocker side to make it 4-2.

SENS PP

The Sens were leading 1-0 in the second period when Gabe Vilardo caught Jake Sanderson in the face with a high stick and was given a double minor. 1:30 in the power play, Ridley Grieg redirected a Thomas Chabot point shot past Connor Hellebuyck to make it 2-0 at 4:03. It was the first time since November 18 that Winnipeg had allowed two power play goals in a game.

DEFENSIVE SHUFFLE

With Logan Stanley playing his first game since December 18, Jets head coach Scott Arniel said that he was going to lean heavily on his top three defencemen against the Senators. True to his word, Josh Morrissey (25:48), Neal Pionk (22:58) and Dylan DeMelo (22:04) led the way in ice time for the Jets defencemen tonight. Stanley (19:14) looked pretty solid in his return to the lineup.