It was the 57th time a player has scored at least five goals in a game, and the 17th by a visiting player. Before Laine, the last player to score five goals in a game was Johan Franzen of the Detroit Red Wings in a 7-5 victory at the Ottawa Senators on Feb. 2, 2011. The only other player to score five goals in a game since 1997-98 was Marian Gaborik of the Minnesota Wild against the visiting New York Rangers on Dec. 20, 2007.
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Laine's big night moved him into the NHL lead in goals this season with 19. He has scored 16 of those goals in November, the most in one month in Jets/Atlanta Thrashers history and the most by any NHL player in a single month since November 1996, when Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins scored 17 in 15 games and Jaromir Jagr of the Penguins had 16 in 13 games. Laine's 16 goals have come in 10 games; the Jets have two games remaining in November, at home against the Penguins on Tuesday and the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.
The 20-year-old (he turns 21 on April 19, 2019) has 99 NHL goals in 177 games played. He is one short of becoming the seventh player in NHL history to score 100 goals before turning 21. Wayne Gretzky holds the mark for most goals scored before the age of 21 with 167, followed by Jimmy Carson (141), Dale Hawerchuk (122), Steven Stamkos (114), Ilya Kovalchuk (108) and Brian Bellows (102).
At 20 years, 219 days old, Laine is the third different player in League history to score five goals in a game before his 21st birthday. He joins Don Murdoch of the New York Rangers (Oct. 12, 1976: 19 years, 353 days) and Gretzky, who accomplished the feat twice (Feb. 18, 1981: 20 years, 23 days; and Dec. 30, 1981: 20 years, 338 days).
Laine scored on all five of his shots on goal, becoming the sixth player in NHL history to score five goals on five shots on goal since 1959-60, when shots were officially tracked. He's the first player to do so since Gretzky scored five times on five shots against the Blues on Dec. 15, 1984.
The hat trick was the second of the week for Laine, who scored three goals in a 6-3 win against the Winnipeg Jets at MTS Bell Place on Monday. He has three hat tricks this season and seven since entering the NHL with the Jets at the start of the 2016-17 season. Only Kovalchuk (11) has more hat tricks in Jets/Thrashers history, and only Gretzky (12) has had more before turning 21. Laine is the 14th different player in NHL history and sixth in the NHL's modern era (since 1943-44) to have at least three hat tricks within his team's first 22 games of a season.
