WINNIPEG, Manitoba – Patrik Laine added to his hat collection Tuesday night, Mark Scheifele took the NHL points lead and the Winnipeg Jets rode their youngsters to a blowout victory.
Laine took the NHL lead in goals with the second hat trick of his rookie season and Scheifele had two goals and two assists, leading the Jets over the Dallas Stars 8-2.
Laine has 11 goals and 15 points this season, and Scheifele overtook Edmonton's Connor McDavid and Chicago's Artem Anisomov in the scoring race with 18 points.
Laine, an 18-year-old Finn, is the fourth player ever in the NHL with multiple hat tricks before his 19th birthday, joining Jack Hamilton, Dale Hawerchuk and Trevor Linden, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Elias also said he's the first with 11 goals in his first 14 career games since 1992-93, when Teemu Selanne, Dmitri Kvartalnov and Rob Gaudreau all did it.
"It's always unbelievable to score," Laine said. "I'm proud of myself and I'm proud of our team.
"I don't want to think about the future, (but) it's amazing to lead the league on the scoreboard."
Scheifele grinned when he was told McDavid had three assists in Edmonton's 4-3 loss to Pittsburgh on Tuesday night.
"Maybe I'll send him a text and say, 'Tough bounce,'" the fourth-year center said.
Marko Dano, Andrew Copp and Adam Lowry also scored for Winnipeg while Nikolaj Ehlers, Nic Petan and Tyler Myers each had two assists.
Patrick Eaves and Tyler Seguin scored for Dallas.
"Pretty much embarrassing from start to finish," Stars forward Jamie Benn said. "We came in here and played a terrible game and that's what you get."
Stars coach Lindy Ruff was asked if this was rock bottom for his injury-riddled team.
"Yeah," he said. "We made some really dumb mistakes that we paid dearly for. Some missed assignments that every play turned into a big play for them. It's hard.
"We're too short-handed to be a dumb team and we were a dumb team tonight."
Connor Hellebuyck made 28 saves in his third straight start for Winnipeg. Dallas netminder Kari Lehtonen was replaced by Antti Niemi after Laine's third goal. He had let in four goals on 11 shots. Niemi finished with 15 saves.
Winnipeg's second shot on net was Scheifele's eighth goal of the season at 3:06.
Laine then deflected Ben Chiarot's point shot for his first goal at 8:46 of the opening period. Dallas outshot Winnipeg 14-5 in the first and was on the power play heading into the second period after Scheifele was called for tripping.
Eaves used the man advantage to score his third goal of the season when he redirected Devin Shore's shot past Hellebuyck at 1:30 to make it 2-1.
Winnipeg responded with four straight goals in the second.
With 9 seconds left on Seguin's penalty for hooking, Laine scored his fifth power-play goal of the season by digging out his own rebound in front of Lehtonen at 6:51.
Laine made it 4-1 just over three minutes later with his third goal at 10:07. The 18-year-old Finn recorded his first hat trick on Oct. 19 with the winner in overtime against Toronto.
After hats were cleaned off the ice, Scheifele and Dano each scored on the power play for a 6-1 lead heading into the third. It was only the third time this season the Jets have held a lead going into the third.
Seguin scored an unassisted goal at 2:32 of the third to give him seven on the season.
Copp's first of the season was a short-handed goal at 13:49 and Lowry finished off the scoring with 1:44 left in the game.
NOTES: Newly re-signed Jets D Jacob Trouba skated with the Jets on Tuesday morning but didn't play. He told reporters he's rescinded the trade request he and his agent had made public when he failed to report to training camp.
UP NEXT
Stars: Travel to Calgary for a game Thursday night.
Jets: Play back-to-back road games against Arizona on Thursday night and Colorado Friday night.
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