Winnipeg Jets state of the franchise: Are they poised for a drastic step back?
The Winnipeg Jets wont win 52 games this season and pile up 110 points to finish fourth in the NHL regular season standings.
Theyre destined to be much worse this year than last.
It was a summerlong declaration, but how much truth is there to the critique? Winnipeg lost Sean Monahan , Tyler Toffoli , Brenden Dillon , Nate Schmidt and Laurent Brossoit .
Rick Bowness retired, creating the opportunity for Scott Arniel to re-establish himself as the NHL head coach.
The Jets signed Kaapo Kahkonen , Eric Comrie and trade deadline acquisition Colin Miller but theres a lot more talent at the departure gate than at arrivals.
The Jets obviously got worse ...
didnt they? Advertisement Well dig into that question, the Jets salary cap outlook, top prospects and more in this state of the union.
Winnipeg is a team in transition with a brand new coaching staff, some exciting prospects and a talented group of veterans that have some obvious strengths and obvious weaknesses, too.
What should we expect from the 2024-25 Jets? Salary cap watch: Flexibility and opportunity cost Winnipeg is projected to start the season with $5.8 million in cap space, although that figure will change the moment Cole Perfetti signs his next contract.
GO DEEPER Projecting where the Jets and Cole Perfetti will land on a new contract For now, the most important thing to keep in mind is that Winnipegs cap space gives it opportunity.
If theyre having another strong season, the Jets will be able to be aggressive at the trade deadline.
Thats an appealing place from which to start the hunt for a battle-tested, playoff-ready top-four defenceman, assuming the Jets feel they need one.
If Winnipeg falters, then its conceivable but less likely that the Jets become a broker for cap-strapped contenders, retaining a portion of a deadline rentals contract before sending that player to his next team for draft capital.
If Perfetti signs a bridge deal say, two years at a $3.9 million AAV then Winnipeg will start the season with almost $3 million in space.
($5.8 million minus $3.9 million plus the cap hit of whichever player Winnipeg waives from its 23-player roster to make room.) If Perfetti signs a long-term deal say, seven years at $6 million per things get tighter, but weve seen Cheveldayoff do good work with modest amounts of cap space in the past.
It might not make sense to go big at the deadline, regardless of available cap space.
Winnipeg will pick its path based on its own performance and its possible that it makes more sense for Winnipeg to move its pending 2025 free agents like Kahkonen, Alex Iafallo , Vladislav Namestnikov , Mason Appleton , Neal Pionk or Nikolaj Ehlers .
Advertisement Depth chart analysis: Talented, dynamic, and lacking balance The biggest takeaway from this forwards depth chart, which sorts every player who played 20 games or more for Winnipeg last season by their average ice time, is the inefficiency.
Last years Jets ran a scoring line, a shutdown line, a secondary scoring line and a secondary shutdown line.
If you didnt fit on the first line (even if you had success there for much of the season) you finished behind Mason Appleton in workload.
There are lots of things to like about Appleton, including consistency of effort, defensive awareness and willingness to take a hit to make a play, but hes not Winnipegs fifth-most effective forward.
Id argue that Arniels Jets would do well to play Ehlers (and Perfetti and Nino Niederreiter , among others) more often than they play Appleton.
Id also argue theyd do well to rethink how they run lines, particularly on a team where the top offensive players dont defend very well and the top defensive players dont score a lot.
There are reasons to disagree with that assessment.
Appleton, Niederreiter and Adam Lowry outscored their opponents 23-15 despite a brutal workload.
The specific brutality of those minutes helped Ehlers, Perfetti and Namestnikov win their minutes 11-6, and its possible Bowness used Lowrys line so often as an example of the work ethic he wanted to establish for the rest of his lines.
He clearly started most periods with Lowrys line on the ice for a reason.
One Jets problem was that Mark Scheifele , Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi got outscored 13-11 while earning the teams worst portion of shots, shot attempts and scoring chances.
Their playoffs were strong, in a small sample, and its possible that Vilardi, now 25, will deliver a healthy season and a bigger all-around impact at five-on-five.
Its also possible that Perfettis year-over-year improvement is so strong that the Namestnikov line becomes a bigger weapon or that Lambert or Chibrikov makes an impact we cant guarantee from here.
The most obvious problem is the number of one-way players.
You want a player who didnt cheat a backcheck all season? Thats Niederreiter, Lowry or Appleton.
You want one who was a consistent threat to score? Thats Scheifele, Connor or Ehlers.
Winnipeg could use more forwards who do both.
Josh Morrissey s offensive explosion has been brilliant, evident to the world at large in the form of Norris Trophy votes at the end of two straight seasons.
His defensive step forward in 2023-24 shouldnt be overlooked, either, as the agile skater made strong, aggressive reads and moved well enough in all directions to cut down scoring chances by top players.
Advertisement Dylan DeMelo takes heat because he isnt a big, crushing player, but his track record of success with Morrissey makes him Winnipegs most important right-handed defenceman.
DeMelos puck retrievals and exit passes remain a strength, giving Winnipeg a top pair that can beat top competition on a consistent basis.
Beyond that, it gets tricky.
Dylan Samberg is a big, strong, positionally smart defender whose next season playing against elite competition will be his first.
His most likely partner, Pionk, has mostly been outmatched in a top-four role since 2020-21.
Theres a version of Pionk that moves well in all four directions, gaps hard at the blue line and makes himself a pain for opposing stars, but hes looked more like a third-pairing player with puck skill than a top-four stalwart for multiple seasons now.
The rest of the workload will be shared.
Theres Logan Stanley , whose size, reach and mobility have appeal but whose defensive zone coverage is sometimes left wanting.
Theres Ville Heinola , who made the team out of camp last season before fracturing his ankle.
His positioning is good but he gives up size and strength, which lends the battles he does win a sense of desperation as opposed to a sense of control.
In my opinion, Heinolas biggest challenge will be to make his retrievals, passes and pinches with NHL pace after so many dominant offensive years for the Moose.
Colin Miller is a 6-foot-1, right-handed defenceman who has played top-four minutes in the NHL and has a cannon of a shot.
For whatever reason, the Jets didnt use him very much after picking him up at the deadline; hes probably good enough to be the No.
4 or 5 defenceman on this seasons club.
Connor Hellebuyck is one of the best goaltenders on the planet and possibly the very best one.
Hes won two of the past five Vezina trophies and earned the William Jennings Trophy with help from Brossoit last season.
Goaltending stats arent a completely safe bet, though.
Even the best in the world sometimes finish good seasons with bad numbers, and the wrong series of circumstances can make great ones seem awful in a playoff round.
Still, Hellebuyck is still the leagues best bet at greatness at the position in any given year.
Kahkonen has looked like a very good goaltender when playing behind quality defending, albeit in small samples on either side of two tough years in San Jose.
Eric Comrie parlayed 19 great games for Winnipeg in 2022-23 into a shot at more starts in Buffalo but didnt equal that greatness in either of his two Sabres seasons.
I see Kakhonen winning the backup job, with Comrie playing stalwart for the Moose, but performance will dictate results.
Advertisement Biggest on-ice question: Will team defence be good enough? I think were going to hear a lot about team defence this season perhaps so much were sick of it.
On paper, this is a defence corps that will have a lot of long nights.
Defence is going to have to be a five-man effort and the goaltending is going to have to be great.
From October through January of last year, Winnipeg did play great defence with a nearly identical roster to the one that will open this season and the goaltending was the best in the NHL, so theres hope.
The penalty kill will need to be a lot better, though, and the second pair looks like a worry from here.
Biggest off-ice question: Could Ehlers stay in Winnipeg after all? There was a time when it didnt look like Ehlers would be on this seasons Jets roster.
Winnipeg approached the idea of shopping him before the draft.
Ultimately, I dont know if the Jets came close to a trade, if the Rutger McGroarty situation derailed things, or if Winnipeg changed tack for other reasons.
Now Ehlers is back, while he, his agent and Cheveldayoff have all said the right things from the end of last season until now: Ehlers loves his Jets teammates, Cheveldayoff has spoken to Ehlers importance and Arniel appears to recognize Ehlers impact.
Ehlers could be everything from a first-line force who signs a surprise extension to trade bait this season; either way, hell have an outsized say in Winnipegs fortunes.
In the pipeline: Lambert, Salomonsson and more Last season, Brad Lambert s challenge was to star in the AHL, bearing the weight of those expectations, and to show resilience if and when the tough times hit.
He did that, scoring 55 points in 64 games, looking dynamic as a centre and finding more ways to use his linemates than he did as an AHL rookie.
Hell catch eyes with his speed at camp (again) and could be a full-time NHL player by seasons end.
Nikita Chibrikov is known for his lethal shot.
He should also be known for making hard plays at both blue lines to keep the puck moving in the right direction; I expect at least one more short-term look in the NHL.
Rookie camp will give us our first look at WHL star Brayden Yager , a fresh look at OHL star Colby Barlow , plus a hopeful glance at oft-injured 2021 first-round pick Chaz Lucius .
Yager is an all-around centre with a good defensive conscience who projects to play in the middle six.
Barlow is a sniper with a pro-ready shot, whether off a one-timer or mid-stride.
Lucius is a smart offensive player with good vision and three consecutive season-ending injuries.
Advertisement Elias Salomonsson s North American arrival is the most exciting storyline on defence and theres an angle from which hes the Jets top prospect, period.
Salomonsson was just 19 when he played an enormous role for Skellefteas SHL championship team in May.
In goal, Thomas Milic looks ready for another strong season in Manitoba and Domenic DiVincentiis could join him while getting ECHL games in Norfolk as needed to gain pro experience.
Final assessment Winnipeg will be led by Hellebuyck, Morrissey, Scheifele, Lowry, Connor and Ehlers.
None of those players are old enough to project a dramatic decline in performance, while theres a chance that Vilardi, Perfetti and Samberg take more than enough steps forward to make up for the departure of Dillon and Schmidt.
I still see the Jets 52-win, 110-point season in 2023-24 as a bar too high for this seasons team to clear, though.
Winnipeg is in a state of transition, with a new coaching staff looking to make its mark on a quality team.
The playoffs themselves should be a thoroughly attainable goal, even if questions about top-end talent, top-four defence and Winnipegs second-line centre dont point to a deep run.
Would 98 points and growth from Perfetti, Vilardi, Lambert and Samberg satisfy Jets fans? Or does Arniels new staff need to clear Bowness first-round hurdle entirely to give Winnipeg a sense of progress? (Photo of Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers and Dylan DeMelo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images).
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