Connor scores 40th of the season, but Jets fall to Senators

WINNIPEG - One of the newest members of the Winnipeg Jets proved to be almost prophetic on Thursday night.
Zach Sanford, who was acquired from the Ottawa Senators on Monday, described playing against teams outside of the playoff race as dangerous by saying "it becomes sort of a track meet or becomes a sleepy type of game, then all of a sudden there are five minutes left and it's a tighter game than you anticipated or want."
That's exactly where the Jets found themselves, in a 1-1 tie with the Senators in the third period at Canada Life Centre, the visitors scored three times in a 3:15 span to blow the game open.
When the final buzzer went, the Jets (30-25-10) were on the losing side of a 5-2 final.
"The biggest thing is we turned too many pucks over in the neutral zone and it didn't allow us to get any sustained zone time," said Jets interim head coach Dave Lowry. "We seemed to be one and done, there were a lot of pucks that were inside we didn't get to really."

Josh Morrissey and Kyle Connor scored provided the offence for the Jets, who saw their two-game win streak snapped at two.
They've been able to put together back-to-back wins numerous times this season. However, a three-game win streak has been difficult to achieve. Winnipeg won three straight in early January, and has won two consecutive games five times since then - but hasn't found that third victory.
"At this time of year, with the position that we're in, we want to get on a run. But this is not an easy league to do that in," said Nikolaj Ehlers, who led the Jets with four shots on goal. "Ottawa was great tonight. There's no way around that. We played into how they want to play and we didn't play the hockey that we need to play to win games."
A sharp angle shot from Morrissey gave the Jets a 1-0 lead 8:38 into the first. The defenceman may have been trying to centre it to Blake Wheeler from just below the left circle, but it banked off the left skate of Senators goaltender Anton Forsberg and in. Wheeler and Mark Scheifele picked up assists on Morrissey's 10th of the season, the first time in his career he's hit double-digits in goals.

Brady Tkachuk tied the game for Ottawa with 5:57 to go in the first, as he deflected a point shot from Artem Zub to beat Connor Hellebuyck on the stick side for his 21st goal of the season.Both teams generated a few chances in a scoreless second, which saw the Senators out shoot the Jets by an 11-7 count.
"We see how talented our group is, no question about that. It's just about the willingness to commit, and I think we were a little disjointed tonight," said Kyle Connor. "Stretching when we don't need to be, need to support the puck, being too close, leaving guys open, just not making the right reads when we need to. Just a very frustrating game for sure."
The third period was looking pretty similar, until Tyler Ennis finished off a two-on-one with the recently acquired Mathieu Joseph to give the Senators a 2-1 lead with 7:35 remaining in regulation.
That started Ottawa's offensive surge, as Colin White flipped home a power play marker from in tight 59 seconds later. Connor Brown then finished off a rush chance with his 10th goal of the season to make it 4-1.
"We want our D to be involved in the offence, but we've got to make sure that our forwards are part of the equation as well," said Lowry. "If the D are going down, the forwards have got to be coming up. We missed a couple of assignments and that was the difference in the hockey game."

Connor pulled the Jets back within two with 2:54 left on the clock. He reached the 40-goal plateau for the first time in his career by firing a loose puck short side on Anton Forsberg.
With the goal, he becomes the first member of the Jets since relocation to have 40 goals and 40 assists in the same season.
Tkachuk added an empty netter with 76 seconds left in the game to round out the scoring.
With the loss, the Jets are five points back of Dallas for the final wildcard spot in the Western Conference and are right back at it tomorrow night, with Patrik Laine, Jack Roslovic, and former assistant coach Pascal Vincent returning to Winnipeg with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
"It will be just like any other NHL game but obviously he was a big part of the Winnipeg Jets, and a very good friend of mine," said Ehlers. "So, it will be fun to hopefully get some battles with him during the game tomorrow."