Laine hat trick powers Jets past Senators

WINNIPEG --Patrik Laine scored three power-play goals for his eighth NHL hat trick to lift the Winnipeg Jets to a 5-2 victory against the Ottawa Senators at Bell MTS Place on Saturday.

"It's always fun to play power play, but obviously more fun when you're scoring," Laine said. "I]*
Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Mikkel Boedker scored for the Senators (18-26-11), who are 0-3-2 in their past five games. Craig Anderson allowed four goals on 22 shots before he was replaced by Marcus Hogberg (11 saves) to start the third period.
"I really liked our game 5-on-5, to be honest," Senators coach D.J. Smith said. "I thought the first period was a good road period. Even the second period, we had our chances. Special teams tonight let us down (0-for-4 on power play; 1-for-4 on penalty kill. Certainly our penalty kill, that's been great all year, gave up three."

Pionk gave the Jets a 1-0 lead at 8:48 of the first period.
Pageau scored 25 seconds into the second period to tie the game at 1-1.
Connor scored to give the Jets a 2-1 lead at 7:49 of the second period before Laine scored at 17:04 of the second period on the power play to make it 3-1.
"It's pretty cool, especially having a front-row seat to it," Pionk said of Laine. "If you get him the puck within the slot there and he doesn't have anybody on him, he's going to put it in."
Boedker cut the lead to 3-2 at 18:29 of the second period.
"Their power play tonight really took the game away from us," Pageau said. "We've got to respond. We need to be able to bounce back and be better. Our [penalty kill] has been pretty good all year. And we got to be able to correct it here."

Laine's second power-play goal of the game with 12 seconds remaining in the second made it 4-2. He completed his hat trick at 8:43 of the third period with the man advantage for a 5-2 lead.
"We're a pretty focused group right now," Connor said. "We know what's at stake and we know what it's going to take. We need every point that we can get right now. We're in a battle. Everybody is really focused. We're grinding and we're winning games the right way."

They said it

"I think sometimes we tend to look more for the pretty play-type thing. But it's kind of one of those that we just need to put pucks there, hit a skate or something, get a greasy bounce and go in to lift up the team and kind of get it going." -- Senators defenseman Thomas Chabot
"He's been solid. He works so hard. You see him after practice, he puts in the time and the effort. It's really nice to see that hard work pay off for him. We're a confident group in front of him as well and we showed it tonight." -- Jets forward Kyle Connor on goaltender Laurent Brossoit earning his first win in his past five starts.

Need to know

With his 133rd NHL goal, Laine passed Sidney Crosby and moved into a tie with Brian Bellows for the seventh-most in NHL history by a player prior to their 22nd birthday. He will turn 22 on April 19. Laine has eight goals in his past eight games, and six goals in his past five games. … Laine's first power-play goal ended a streak of 13 power play opportunities without a goal for the Jets. … Winnipeg scored the opening goal for a sixth-straight game and improved to 19-0-0 when leading after two periods.

What's next

Senators:At the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday (9 p.m. ET; ALT, RDS, TSN5, NHL.TV)
Jets: Host the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; TVAS, SN, NBCSCH+, NHL.TV)