Articles in Winnipeg Jets

A 6-3 victory tonight by the Colorado Avalanche over the Winnipeg Jets gives them a 4-1 series win.

from Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun,

After all, nothing reveals character like playoff adversity.

Has anything changed from a year ago, when in this same scenario the Jets folded like a lawn chair against Vegas?

That was enough to leave a couple thousand empty seats most games.

This team was different, we’ve been told. Not fractured. More committed.

Is this new-found team unity strong enough to produce their best game of the playoffs – or was it just lip service?

Players facing elimination will always say the right things.

Rick Bowness has no doubt heard more of the backs-to-the-wall cliches than most of us.

“We can all say all the words in the world and say all the right things … tell you everything you want to hear,” the coach said on Monday. “But everything will be decided on what our eyes tell us. Not our ears.”

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from Eric Engels of Sportsnet,

The Winnipeg Jets are down 3-1 in the playoffs, they’re facing elimination in five games, and it all feels so shockingly familiar.

They meekly tucked tail and bowed out without a fight against the Vegas Golden Knights a year ago, and they appear to be doing it again now against the Colorado Avalanche.

Last spring, the Jets lost in four straight after winning Game 1, leaving head coach Rick Bowness disgusted.

“We have to push back,” he said once the Jets were eliminated. “There has to be a push back. There has to be pride. You have to be able to push back when things aren’t going your way. We had no push back. Their better players were so much better than ours tonight. They deserved to win. They were the better team in the regular season, they were the better team in this series.”

It feels like we’re a game away from hearing Bowness repeat himself.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way this time around — with the Jets proving to be a 52-win juggernaut in the regular season and entering the playoffs on an eight-game winning streak — but here we are again.

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Game highlights are below.

from Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun,

Before Tuesday’s tilt with Colorado, Winnipeg Jets coach Rick Bowness, talking about the 8:45 p.m. start time, joked about having a nap on the bench during the game.

Hours later his team went out and did just that.

In good shape with a 2-1 lead past the middle mark of the second period, the Jets plopped their heads on the proverbial pillow and curled up into a ball.

By the time they’d pull on their pajamas for real, they’d dropped a 5-2 decision, evening the series at a game apiece as it moves to Denver.

Three Colorado goals in the last six minutes of the second period turned what could have been such a sweet dream into a nightmare.

Inches from a 3-1 lead – Kyle Connor rang a shot off the goal post, sending play the other way – the Jets instead saw Artturi Lehkonen’s deflection tie it.

No problem, no panic, right? Bowness’s crew hadn’t been nearly as loose as it was in Game 1.

What came next can best be described as a recurring nightmare from Connor Hellebuyck’s past.

continued and here are the game highlights...

from Sonny Sachdeva of Sportsnet,

In the wake of comments from Winnipeg Jets owner Mark Chipman that spurred a familiar wave of worry from fans who lost their NHL club once before, commissioner Gary Bettman arrived in town this week and made a point to dispel any confusion about the league's position on the Canadian franchise.

“This is a place where hockey matters,” Bettman said at a press conference in the city Tuesday, while in town for his annual visit. “I believe that this is a strong NHL market. I believe that ownership has made extraordinary commitments to the Jets, to this arena, to the downtown area, involving hundreds of millions of dollars, and I’m not sure why people are now speculating that somehow they’re not going to be here.”

The speculation in question stemmed from comments made by Chipman in a recent interview with The Athletic, wherein the Jets owner voiced his concern about the state of the club’s attendance and season-ticket sales.

"I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t say, 'We’ve got to get back to 13,000 (season tickets),'" Chipman said in the piece. "This place we find ourselves in right now, it’s not going to work over the long haul. It just isn’t."

On Tuesday, Bettman suggested Chipman’s comments were more about the club's ability to compete as best it can as an NHL franchise rather than the viability of remaining in Winnipeg.

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from Sportsnet,

Winnipeg Jets owner Mark Chipman says the team needs to regain its strong attendance to ensure the franchise has a solid future in one of the smallest markets in the league.

In an interview with The Athletic, Chipman said the team's season-ticket base is under 9,500 this season after being around 13,000 three years ago.

“I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t say, ‘We’ve got to get back to 13,000,’” Chipman said. “This place we find ourselves in right now, it’s not going to work over the long haul. It just isn’t.”

The Jets' average attendance of 13,306 has the team playing to 87.4 per cent capacity at the 15,225-seat Canada Life Centre, the third worst mark in the 32-team NHL. The average attendance is second worst to the Arizona Coyotes, who play in a 4,600-seat college rink.

While attendance has improved in recent weeks with the Jets competing for top spot in the Central Division, the low season-ticket number makes it tough to fill the rink on a nightly basis. The team has sold out just four games this season.

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NHL release is below.

from Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun,

This shouldn’t diminish what Hellebuyck has done so far this season. He’s only put together the most spectacular numbers of his career.

Has it been helped by the team play in front of him? Absolutely. That was one of Bowness’ intentions, to lessen the load on Hellebuyck.

But it’s not as if the 30-year-old netminder has changed anything.

I’d argue that he’s only elevated himself further, becoming a better version of himself while adapting to what must be a sight for sore goalie eyes.

Look no further than his goals saved above expected number this year.

In all situations (so 5-on-5, power play, penalty kill, etc.), Hellebuyck outpaces every goaltender in the league with 20.5, a full four more goals than second-place Thatcher Demko in Vancouver.

only widens. There, Hellebuyck entered Wednesday at 20.1, nearly a full seven goals more than Toronto’s Martin Jones, who has played less than half the games.

More traditional stats suggest a similar story.

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from Paul Friesen of The Winnipeg Sun,

It seems hockey’s old-school remains in session, even if it takes a hidden electronic device to expose it.

Players see a teammate get hurt and they plan for revenge. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Or, in the case of the Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota Wild, two fights and a stick to the face for a crosscheck that sent a player to the injured list.

It turns out that New Year’s Eve afternoon fight between Adam Lowry and Minnesota’s Pat Maroon, right at the opening faceoff, wasn’t enough for the Wild.

They’d lost Kirill Kaprizov for a week or two in the previous game, after all. Someone had to pay.

Wait a minute – didn’t Brenden Dillon answer for that hit later in that game, dropping the gloves with the Wild’s Jake Middleton?

Yes, he did. And that should have been the end of it.

But hockey being hockey, players won’t rest until they get a little closer to a full pound of flesh.

It didn’t matter if the flesh didn’t even belong to Dillon.

Perhaps if Maroon had left Lowry writhing in pain on the ice, done for the day, that early fight would have been enough.

But Lowry seemed fine. Wasn’t even bleeding.

Enter Minnesota forward Ryan Hartman.

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from Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun,

The Winnipeg Jets saw a wounded animal on Wednesday night and did the responsible thing — they put it down.

The Detroit Red Wings came into Winnipeg, as their captain Dylan Larkin put it, spiralling, with losses in six of their past seven.

The Jets smelled blood and feasted in a 5-2 win, doing exactly what you’d expect a division-leading team to do when presented with such an opportunity.

Winnipeg didn’t sag. They didn’t take the Red Wings lightly. They got them on the mat early and never let them up.

It’s the sign of a good team, one that simply came out, stuck to their system, and produced what some might call a pretty easy win.

Naysayers may balk at the opponent.

They might suggest exactly what’s already been written above.

But one only has to recount recent memories of Jets teams of yore that would struggle with the floundering team in front of them.

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via TSN,

It's stating the obvious but the Jets losing their top goal scorer is a massive blow and with the team ranked in the middle of the pack in goals per game in the NHL, being without your only scorer in double digits is going to be tough to replace. Can the Jets withstand this loss? TSN Hockey analyst Mike Johnson weighs in.

Watch the YouTube version below.

WINNIPEG, December 4, 2023 - The Winnipeg Jet Hockey Club announced today they have agreed to terms with forward Nino Niederreiter on a three-year contract extension with an average annual value of $4,000,000. The contract extension will begin in the 2024-25 season.

from Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun,

You’re witnessing the most connected, committed and bought-in Jets team since the whole thing was purchased from the ATL and moved to downtown Winnipeg in 2011.

If anything, the only mitigating circumstances that would fuel a detractor at the moment would be recent memory, Jets teams of old that spun their tires endlessly.

This is not that.

This is not the same team that was doing similar things in the standings at this time last year.

This wagon has had its wheels reinforced. It’s a smoother, ride but all the huff-and-puff of a small-block V8.

And perhaps the worst thing for the rest of the league is the Jets are still in their ascent. What other turbulence awaits? And is the bird filled with enough fuel?

They’ve battled early adversity, a death in the hockey family that hit so close to home, a head coach pulled away by a family emergency and an early injury to one of the team’s top-line players.

If anything, the tragedy, the health scare and the injury have only galvanized this team, forcing it closer together, and hardening its armour.

This a team that’s malleable, a pliability to rise to any challenge. It hasn’t always resulted in a win, but it has more times than not. And there are signs of learning.

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via Sportsnet's YouTube page,

Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck joins Scott Oake and Louis DeBrusk on After Hours to discuss his contract negotiation process before signing a seven-year extension, give a peek into his visualization process, and much more.

from Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun,

We need more support, was the message.

Forever Winnipeg, they called it.

Two home games into the season, it’s more like, Whatever, Winnipeg.

After playing before some 2,000 empty seats in their home opener against Florida, the Jets had more than 4,000 bums missing for Tuesday night’s tilt with Pierre-Luc Dubois and the L.A. Kings.

The announced gathering of 11,226 was the most feeble turnout in the 12-plus seasons of Jets 2.0, not including pandemic-restricted crowds....

Wednesday. “First game, I didn’t notice it right away. Me and Ehlers (on Tuesday) had a conversation sitting on the bench, we were looking around, and were a little taken aback. You’d like to see that support… disappointed, for sure.”

This is Connor’s seventh full season with the Jets.

Over the first five, he saw virtually no empty seats, affirming Winnipeg’s reputation as one of the NHL’s most enthusiastic markets.

Last season, cracks began to appear in the veneer, as the average crowd fell to 14,045 in the 15,325-seat building, ranking Winnipeg 30th in the 32-team NHL.

It appears this season will remove whatever shine was left.

read on

from Ryan Dixon of Sportsnet,

Few, if any, teams in the NHL will be more fascinating to monitor this season than the Winnipeg Jets. Note the word choice of "monitor" there versus "watch." It’s not that the Jets figure to be unwatchable by any means. In fact, there are still very good players dotted throughout this lineup. It’s just that the real drama figures to play out away from the ice, as the futures of two pending UFAs — Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck — come into focus.

Winnipeg snatched the final playoff berth in the Western Conference last year and was scolded by coach Rick Bowness heading out the door for its uninspired showing during a five-game, first-round loss to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights.

The off-season brought about an end to a couple of lingering subplots, as centre Pierre-Luc Dubois — long destined for a ticket out of town — was traded to the Los Angeles Kings, while Blake Wheeler — stripped of his captaincy at last season’s training camp — was bought out by the team.

Truthfully, the grumbling and snipping surrounding this squad can sometimes obscure the fact there’s still a playoff-worthy roster representing this hockey-crazed city. Of course, if the team is tracking something other than a post-season appearance three months into the season, the off-ice noise is only going to get louder.

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from Jamie Thomas of WinnipegJets.com,

There are not many honours in team sports bigger than being named captain.

That honour was given to Winnipeg Jet forward Adam Lowry officially Tuesday morning as he becomes the third captain in franchise history since the team moved here from Atlanta. He follows Andrew Ladd and Blake Wheeler who served as captain for five and six years respectively.

“When I found out, I was pretty excited, almost a little speechless. It’s something growing up you kind of can dream about and something that seems almost unattainable,” said Lowry.

“Getting to be a captain of a Canadian NHL team is pretty special and something I’m really looking forward too.”

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from Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet,

If past behaviour truly is the best predictor of future behaviour, you can expect Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff to remain patient in the coming weeks — and possibly months.

With Jets training camp just a few weeks away, what we know is that Cheveldayoff wasn’t bluffing back in July when he said he was comfortable with goalie Connor Hellebuyck and top-line centre Mark Scheifele going into this season on expiring contracts.

Just over two months later, both Hellebuyck and Scheifele remain in the fold and are set to roll into town to prepare for the new season.

Of course, the topic of conversation in the first media availabilities will revolve around the future of those players, and you can expect to see the art of deflection fully on display.

There’s a good reason for that.

This is uncharted territory for Hellebuyck and Scheifele as much as it is for the organization, and there could still easily be a couple of twists and turns before there is a resolution.

You can expect both players are going to do what they can to try to put the focus on the present rather than engage in a discussion about the potential outcomes — and that’s a wise strategy.

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from Travis Yost of TSN,

One of the outstanding deals we still anticipate happening is the trade of Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck – a premier puck-stopper in the National Hockey League, and a player coveted by virtually every team in the league.

The looming Hellebuyck trade is fascinating for several reasons. Chief among them is the complexity with this trade as it relates to his contract. Hellebuyck is on a digestible $6.1-million contract through 2023-24, but will command an extraordinary raise at the end of the year. Some teams may be interested in a one-year rental for the league’s best goaltender, though I suspect the majority of suitors wouldn’t dream of such a significant trade without confidence in a long-term extension.

And then there’s the open question of how much a team may be willing to play a 30-year old goaltender with about 500 games of NHL mileage in the books.

What teams are ultimately weighing is the obvious reward of acquiring a player like Hellebuyck, and the downside potential in any deal – especially one where Hellebuyck is extended on a long-term deal. If we frame it as reward versus risk, we can frame how organizations are weighing a potential trade.

Let’s talk about the reward first. Hellebuyck is an elite goaltender, rivalled only by a handful of peers (Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy and Nashville’s Juuse Saros immediately come to mind). Since entering the league in the 2015-16 season, he’s first in total workload and fourth in save percentage (91.6 per cent).

read on

from Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun,

You can blame the winters if you want.

But that’s not the real story here.

After all, nobody is clamouring to get to Arizona to play for the Coyotes.

Dubois, like most players, just wants to win. Sunny California is simply a bonus.

When you don’t have the weather or low taxes on your side, you’d better have the team and the culture.

In the space of five years, the Jets have gone from a team on the cusp of Cup contention to one on the brink of implosion.

One year the head coach throws up his hands and walks out, the next key players start looking for the exits.

Today it’s Dubois, tomorrow perhaps it’ll be Connor Hellebuyck.

Both see a team that reached its peak and is looking at the down-side of the hill. No doubt they watched the Vegas Golden Knights week-long championship celebration with envy.

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