What stands between the Winnipeg Jets and excellence?
It’s an important question, although it’s also a vague one and a little bit cold. The implied premise, of course, is that the Jets are not currently excellent. Tell that to the standings, say devoted fans, as they point to Winnipeg’s 52 wins and 110 points from last season: Fourth place in the NHL was an excellent accomplishment. Giving up the fewest goals in the league was even more impressive.
Florida’s 198 goals against tied the Jets. Florida’s 52-24-6 regular season record was also a perfect match. But one team hoisted the Stanley Cup while the other was outclassed in five games.
Jets captain Adam Lowry says there is a lesson in Florida’s path to excellence.
“When they lost in the finals two years ago, they were really depleted at that point,” Lowry said at Hockey For All Centre last week. “They took those lessons, found how tough it is to win at that time of year, and became a great defensive team, and that’s the reason why they’re the champions.”
Meanwhile, Winnipeg gave up 28 goals in five playoff games — the most it had given up in any five-game stretch of play all season. The Jets’ woeful penalty kill wears a lot of that. The goaltender wears some of it, too; the series was tied 1-1 and Game 3 was tied 2-2 when Connor Hellebuyck made his most costly error. He tried to block Mikko Rantanen’s seam pass to Valeri Nichushkin, losing his balance on the play and giving up the net. Nichushkin’s power-play goal put the Avalanche ahead 3-2 in the game and never gave the Jets another look.
The series was not all about Hellebuyck. In fact, the number of flurries in which Colorado shot, retrieved the puck, shot, retrieved the puck and continued the cycle for minutes on end was a credit to resilience against a torrent. Even if you believe in Hellebuyck to be elite in any random five-game stretch, it’s clear that depending solely on a goaltender while getting dramatically out-chanced is not a guaranteed formula for success.
That series is long over. On defence, Winnipeg let Brenden Dillon go, bought out Nate Schmidt and re-signed Colin Miller. In goal, the Jets added Kappo Kahkonen and brought back Eric Comrie as backup Laurent Brossoit left in free agency. Veteran forwards and trade deadline pickups Sean Monahan and Tyler Toffoli signed elsewhere, too.
Younger players will get opportunities throughout the lineup this season. Cole Perfetti will get top-six minutes the moment he signs his next contract. Brad Lambert has a fighting chance to make the team. Nikita Chibrikov could also turn enough heads to earn NHL time. Dylan Samberg is the most likely candidate for top four minutes while Ville Heinola, Logan Stanley and even Elias Salomonsson will compete to round out the roster. On opening night, the Jets will look nearly as good on paper as the team that finished fourth in the NHL one year ago.
Rick Bowness has retired. Scott Arniel takes over and will lean on his new assistants, Dean Chynoweth and Davis Payne, along with returnees Marty Johnston and Matt Prefontaine. Arniel’s mission will be to reproduce Bowness’ defensive results and improve team play where he can. Based on his resume in Toronto and Carolina, Chynoweth will bring a much more aggressive approach to the penalty kill. Payne’s power plays have historically seen more player movement, with players rotating into and out of the bumper spot high in the zone. Both Jets’ special teams finished in the bottom third of the league last season; there is real opportunity for growth here.
It would be so easy, then — so painfully simple — to look at Winnipeg’s 110 points, assume that improved special teams will make up for any growing pains at five-on-five, and plot the Jets’ route to another playoff spot. The “biggest question” could be about Arniel’s impact — what will the team’s analytics “summit” add to team strategy? How has the second-time NHL head coach grown since his disappointing debut in Columbus all those years ago? We could also drill down into Hellebuyck and Mark Scheifele as their $8.5 million contracts kick in, wonder about Nikolaj Ehlers’ uncertain future, project Gabriel Vilardi’s second-year growth and wonder about bigger roles for Perfetti, Morgan Barron, Lambert, Samberg and Heinola.
Every single one of these items is secondary. Even if this summer’s changes (and the players’ often-cited soul-searching) lead to inch-by-inch improvement, we would be missing the point of zooming in on something as specific as, say, Scheifele being plus-14 at five-on-five playing with Ehlers but a net zero with Kyle Connor.
None of this matters more than this season’s second half and its stretch run. The single biggest question facing this year’s Jets is about their ability to elevate their game down the stretch without getting too high on any early-season success.
There was an enormous difference in the quality of play between the team that was in first place in January and the one that lost in the first round again. Point at the Jets’ eight-game winning streak or 8-2-0 finish to last season as suits you, but those stretch-run Jets got outshot and out-chanced at five-on-five despite gaudy results. The flow of play was eerily reminiscent of Winnipeg’s 2022-23 fall from first in the Western Conference to its wild-card spot (and its five-game loss to Vegas).
The Jets missed the playoffs entirely in 2021-22. The 2020-21 Jets, who swept Edmonton before being swept by Montreal, played a 56-game season — too short for a “second half” in any true sense. Rewind to 2019-20 and Winnipeg found itself struggling as the pandemic interrupted the season. Go back to 2018-19 — the last time the team started a season with a “Cup contender” label — and the Jets also led the Western Conference in January before an epic second-half slide led to an unceremonious first-round exit.
Call it a failure to elevate the team’s play down the stretch. Call it a lack of resilience when the season gets tougher. Call it trying too hard for offence during the January and February doldrums, resting on laurels, a problem with the Jets roster or a series of flukes.
Whatever name you give it, the Jets have an obvious dragon to slay. Whatever heights they hit in the first half of the season, they must continue to improve in January and again after the All-Star break and throughout the stretch run. It won’t matter if Connor scores 40 goals or Scheifele hits a point per game or Ehlers, Perfetti and Vilardi all post incredible offensive totals. The Jets can’t afford to give up second-half ground the way they have done for so many years in a row.
“Last year we put ourselves in a great position to have success. We had a great regular season, but now find ways to have success in the playoffs. The intensity ramps up that much more,” Lowry said. “As we approach training camp, as we approach the start of the regular season, that’s our mindset — how can we improve on the solid regular-season success we had last year so it translates into postseason success.”
(Photo of Mark Scheifele, Gabriel Vilardi, Nikolaj Ehlers and Josh Morrissey: Jonathan Kozub / NHLI via Getty Images)
