Jets grounded by Senators

In Winnipeg, the Jets reverted to form this season dropping another game after a shirt stretch of success. This time they lost to the Ottawa Senators, 5-2.

Brady Tkachuk hot for a pair of goals for the Senators.

“[Tkachuk] scores two, he had short shifts, he played well away from the puck,” Ottawa coach D.J. Smith said. “He played a real solid game away from the puck, and that’s what we’re looking for down the stretch from those guys is to be plus players when they’re on the ice, and they were plus players and a big part of it tonight.”

Anton Forsberg made 22 saves in the Ottawa win.

“Our focus is making sure that we’re playing the right way every game until the end,” Ottawa’s Nick Holden said. “And if we have the opportunity to crush some dreams (against teams in the Stanley Cup Playoff race), then that’s what we’re going to do.”

Josh Morrissey gave the Jets an early 1-0 lad.

‘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,” Jets coach Dave Lowry said. “We seemed to be one and done. There were a lot of pucks that were inside we didn’t get to, really.”

The Senators moved to 23-36-5.

Kyle Connor hit for his 40th of the season for Winnipeg.

“We needed to keep it a little simpler, and that resulted in the score tonight,” Connor said. “I thought they did a really good job … limiting our chances, forced us to make a lot of dumped pucks, and we just weren’t able to retrieve pucks like we usually do and tried to come up the middle and make an extra play more than we should have.”

Tyler Ennis scored to give the Sens 2-1, in the third period.

Colin White hit for a power play goal to get give Ottawa a two-goal lead.

“We checked hard, we tracked really hard through the middle,” Brown said. “They like to make plays off the rush, and we limited most of that just with numbers back. We did a lot of good things.”

Tkachuk’s first goal tied the game, 1-1, in the first period, his second was into an empty-net for the 5-2 final.

Connor Hellebuyck made 28 saves in the Jets loss.

“At this time of year, with the position that we’re in, we want to get on a run,” the Jets’ Nikolaj Ehlers said. “But this is not an easy league to do that in. There are some pretty good teams, and 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.”