WPG@MTL: Drouin scores his second on the rush

MONTREAL -- Jonathan Drouin and Phillip Danault each had four points for the Montreal Canadiens in their eighth win in 10 games, 5-2 against the Winnipeg Jets at Bell Centre on Thursday.

Drouin scored Montreal's first two goals and had an assist on third-period goals by Shea Weber and Jesperi Kotkaniemi for his first four-point game in the NHL.
Danault had an assist on Drouin's goals and on Weber's before he scored at 11:22 of the third for his second four-point game in the League.
WATCH: [All Jets vs. Canadiens highlights]
Carey Price made 32 saves for his seventh straight win, and Kotkaniemi scored in his fourth straight game for Montreal (31-18-6), which had a season-high 53 shots on goal.
"When you have 50 shots against a team like that, you're doing something right," Drouin said.
The Canadiens have won three straight games and are 8-1-1 in their past 10.
Connor Hellebuyck made 48 saves, including 18 in the first and 17 in the second, and Mark Scheifele and Brendan Lemieux scored for Winnipeg (34-17-3), which lost 3-2 in overtime to the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday.
"It's going to be tough for me to describe or evaluate that game," Jets coach Paul Maurice said. "They won, they earned it, they played well, they played fast. We were red rotten from about five minutes into that game. You've got a goalie that's standing on his head, that found a way to make a 5-2 score flattering.
"But you don't have a game too often where the coach is no good, the players are no good, the food was no good, you just hope the plane works."

WPG@MTL: Drouin beats Hellebuyck in tight

Drouin tied it 1-1 at 7:51 of the first period. He scored from the slot after Brendan Gallagher recovered a rebound of his shot in the left corner.
Drouin scored his second of the game 43 seconds into the second. He raced down the left side and put a wrist shot into the right corner of the net to make it 2-1.
Hellebuyck kept Winnipeg within one goal the rest of the second with several big saves, including a left-pad save on Nicolas Deslauriers at 10:25 before denying Drouin a hat trick with a save on a Montreal power play at 12:48.
Drouin set up Weber's goal to make it 3-1 at 4:02 of the third.
"We just stuck with it," Weber said. "Even after the first there was that one shift, we could have scored probably three or four times. And he's an elite goalie and they're an opportunistic team over there so even when it was 2-1 we knew that, especially with their power play, they're able to score quick, and knew that they weren't out of it so we had to keep playing."

WPG@MTL: Danault buries rebound to extend lead

Danault made it 4-1 at 11:22 when he scored for his fourth point.
Drouin got his fourth point when he set up Kotkaniemi on the power play for his 10th goal of the season to make it 5-1 at 14:04.
Lemieux made it 5-2 at 19:10.
Scheifele gave Winnipeg a 1-0 lead at 4:54 of the first period with his Jets-leading 27th goal on a pass from Kyle Connor.

They said it

"They were definitely fast. They played a really good game and definitely one of the fastest teams we saw. And they came to play and they showed it and they were all over us and didn't make it easy for us." -- Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck
"I think they knew it was a playoff-type game and they were ready, we were too. So it was a great atmosphere." -- Canadiens forward Phillip Danault on the Bell Centre crowd
"It was a good team effort. We know they're a very good team, one of the top teams in the League, and a good challenge. I thought we played a solid game, 60 minutes, and that's what we need to do every night." -- Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber

Need to know

Jets defenseman Dustin Byfuglien returned after missing 15 games because of a lower-body injury. … Kotkaniemi is the fifth 18-year old player since 2001-02 to score in four or more consecutive team games, joining Sidney Crosby and Ilya Kovalchuk, who each did so twice, Sean Monahan and Jordan Staal. … Price has had five streaks of at least seven wins. Three other Canadiens goalies have accomplished the feat five times: Jacques Plante, Ken Dryden and Michel Larocque. … Drouin had three points in a game six times previously. … Danault had four points (two goals, two assists) in a 5-4 win against the New York Rangers on Oct. 28, 2017.

What's next

Jets:At the Ottawa Senators on Saturday (2 p.m. ET; CBC, SN, SN1, TVAS, NHL.TV)
Canadiens: Host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; CBC, SN1, City, NHL.TV)

Drouin, Canadiens defeat Jets in 5-2 win