"It counts as one win. We don't care how we get it as long as we get it. That's been our mindset the whole year," said Laine who scored his ninth goal of the season tonight.
"We've been in a lot of one goal games this year and we've been really good at them. Obviously we've had a couple of these 5-1, three to four goal wins as well so it's probably good for our confidence."
For the second straight game, the Jets got a power play goal in the third period after not generating much in the first 40 minutes. Both of those man advantage markers came off the stick of Mark Scheifele who now leads the team in that department with four. Laine has led the Jets in power play goals in all three of his NHL seasons. The Finnish forward is adjusting to not having as many open looks as he has in years past.
"There hasn't been too many chances to shoot and that's just the way it is it seems," said Laine who has two power play goals in 2019-20.
"Teams play it differently now and if I'm not going to get it then we have four other guys like we saw today. Four good players who can make plays and finish as well. That's kind of been our power play this year."
While Laine and his teammates work out finding new ways to score when up a man, the penalty kill and their goaltending has been winning games for them. In their 114 point record setting season in 2017-18, it took the Jets 34 games to get to 19 wins. This season it has taken them only 31, giving the 21-year-old a lot of confidence about their playoff chances.
"Obviously after the offseason losses that we had it was kind of a question mark how the team was going to play this year. But I think we've showed everybody that we're going to be a good team this year," said Laine.
"I don't want to say we are going to make the playoffs. We have that kind of team that can have a good run. We want to be that team who plays in the conference final again. We've been that team in the past and we want to be that team this year too."
