Laine, Ehlers combine for five points in Jets victory

WINNIPEG - There's no such thing as the perfect game, but what the Winnipeg Jets - and any other team for that matter - can strive toward is excellence in all areas, for the full 60 minutes.
With the young guns leading the charge, the Jets were just that - excellent - in Sunday's win over the Colorado Avalanche.
Patrik Laine led the way with three points (1G, 2A), while Nikolaj Ehlers - the Jets' most dangerous player offensively, all night - scored twice in a 4-1 decision.
Blake Wheeler scored the other, Mark Scheifele tallied two assists, and Connor Hellebuyck made 27 saves in the victory.

Jarome Iginla broke the shutout with a power-play goal at 17:59 of the third period, but Colorado was otherwise neutralized by Winnipeg's improved defensive play.
"We stopped and started on pucks and won one-on-one battles and to me, that's rest," said Head Coach Paul Maurice. "It started in practice (on Saturday). We were strong throughout the entire practice - and we only went for about 45 minutes - but we were able to push straight through it. When you're better rested, you can stop and start, you can win battles, you can get your stick on pucks. They have quite a bit of size and want to outwork you in the corners and we were very good in that department."

The Jets will now finish up their pre-Christmas schedule with a pair of games in Vancouver, beginning on Tuesday at Rogers Arena.
Laine drew first blood for the Jets at 7:05 of the second period as he rifled a one-timer past Avalanche goalie Calvin Pickard on a 2-on-1 with Scheifele. Scheifele, who took a bank pass out of his own end, carried it up ice before feeding Laine at the top of the left circle for the rookie's 18th of the campaign.

Did anyone think, for even one second, that when that pass came across there was any chance it wouldn't result in a goal?
Not here - and certainly not among the 15,000 others on hand, who were more than halfway out of their seats at the point of contact. With him, you can sense the goal before it even happens because it would be foolish to expect otherwise.
"I knew that he was going to pass, so I had to be ready," Laine said, adding it was "easy" to score with a beautiful pass and that was much of a hole to shoot for.

The Jets padded their lead with a couple of quick ones early in the third.
On a partial 2-on-1 at 2:54, Mathieu Perreault sent a beautiful saucer pass over to Wheeler, who chopped it home for his ninth of the year and first eight games.
Then, about a minute later, Ehlers took a feed from Scheifele at the bottom of the circle and ripped top shelf, celebrating his fifth with an emphatic leap into the corner glass. Laine and Scheifele did some great work along the boards to first free the puck and then send it across to Ehlers, who had snuck behind the Colorado D.

"In a game like this where we're up 2-0 and I feel like we're playing really well, it felt good to put one in," he said.
Ehlers had gone 15 games without a goal before potting one last week in Calgary, but was held off the score sheet in the following two before breaking out tonight.
"All you care about is how the team is doing, and the personal stuff comes second," Ehlers said. "It's not that I've been feeling like I haven't played well. I've been feeling really good and playing with a lot of confidence and just playing the game."
Ehlers, with help from Laine, found the empty net with a half minute left in the third.

"I'm super excited for him," Laine said of his linemate, and best friend off the ice. "He's had so many good chances and now he got two goals. I think they were huge for his (confidence).
"I honestly haven't seen anyone that can skate that well, and he can dangle at top speed and shoot the puck like everybody saw in this game. He's a special player and it's nice to play on the same line as him."
The Jets were far and away the better team in the opening 20 as they outshot the Avalanche 11-6, but Pickard - a Winnipeg native - stood tall in his first start in his hometown.
Bryan Little had a great chance to open the scoring midway through when Dustin Byfuglien sent him in alone with a 45-foot outlet pass, but with a defender in chase, closing the gap and limiting his options, Little looked up and fired wide.
On a power play late in the period, Laine had two chances from the top of the circle. The first - a one-timer off a Toby Enstrom feed - was gobbled up by the netminder, while the second-a wrister with a clear lane to the net - rattled the pipe.
The kids were dangerous all game long, earning the praise of their head coach in his post-game press conference.
"Even though they're both really young and there's lots in their game that's still developing, they have a really clear idea of who they are as players and that makes it a lot easier to play off.
"There's very little offensive coaching when it comes to those two, especially. I don't want to tell them when to shoot, I don't want to tell them when to make plays, other than as a group when they're looking for plays that aren't there and aren't doing the basics of driving pucks deep. We want them learning the offensive game in their own minds, because they're special offensive players."
- Ryan Dittrick, WinnipegJets.com