Time: 9:00 PM EST Venue: Gila River Arena, Phoenix, Ariz., 85305 / Patrick Laine seems to have rediscovered his scoring touch, in Las Vegas of all places, and that could spell trouble for the rest of the NHL's Western Conference. The Winnipeg forward scored twice to snap a 15-game goalless drought as the Jets defeated the Golden Knights 6-3 Friday night, ending a season-long three-game losing streak and returning to the top of the Central Division. The Jets, who lost 7-1 Wednesday in the opener of their three-game trip, will wrap it up Sunday at Arizona. The Coyotes will retire Shane Doan's No. 19 jersey." I think there's always (special) meanings when we're playing," said Laine, whose goals both came on the power play. "But especially, we had to win these games. We lost a couple of huge games here last playoffs so we needed to kind of win this one. After the game in Colorado, we needed a good bounce-back and I think we did that." Nikolaj Ehlers, who had missed the previous 20 games with an upper-body injury, scored just 56 seconds into the game and the Jets never trailed." You're pumped up to be back and you get on the ice, you skate down and go to the net and it comes right to you. It's a pretty good feeling," Ehlers told NHL.com. "As a line and as a team, we all did that tonight." Kyle Connor, Adam Lowry and Andrew Copp also scored for the Jets and defenseman Jacob Trouba had three assists. Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck made 29 saves." Team win. Everybody had a piece of that. Everyone did the right things when they needed to," said Jets captain Blake Wheeler, who added two assists. "We talked about it before the game -- everyone was going to have a dirty job at some point in this game and when it's your turn you've got to step up and make the play. From the goaltender out, everyone had a piece of that one." The Jets were still without standout defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, who missed his third consecutive game with a lower-body injury. Byfuglien isn't expected to return for Sunday's game. The Coyotes will be opening a seven-game homestand. They just completed a trip in which they won two of three games, beating Edmonton in a shootout and Vancouver in overtime -- both by 3-2 margins. Alex Galchenyuk scored the winner in overtime Thursday against the Canucks. The win pulled the Coyotes to within one point of a wild-card playoff berth in the Western Conference." This is where we want to be," Lawson Crouse, who also scored, told NHL.com. "We want to be in that (playoff) chase, and we're doing whatever we can to get in there." We just played desperate hockey. We knew what we had to do and we did it right to the end of the game. We're a determined group right now, and we're doing whatever we can to win hockey games." Arizona forward Richard Panik returned to the lineup Thursday after missing three games with an illness.--Field Level Media
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