4 Big Questions for the Winnipeg Jets in 2020-2021
Before the Jet engines get fired up there are four big questions to be considered for the Winnipeg Jets in 2020-2021.
The Winnipeg Jets are the least known, very intriguing team in the NHL. Their most recent national headlines include the debacle of Dustin Byfuglien and his leave of absence followed by the termination of his contract and, now over the past calendar year, the trade rumors swirling around Patrik Laine. Even goaltender Connor Hellebuyck‘s Vezina Trophy award-winning 2019-2020 made minuscule ripples in hockey media.
Looking at the other six teams in the newly dubbed North Division the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, and even the basement-dwelling Ottawa Senators have an East Coast big city thing going for them, while the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames have their battle for Alberta. In Vancouver, the Canucks own the Pacific Northwest as the only NHL team in the Seattle and Portland media markets.
Winnipeg, as far as media markets are concerned, is in the middle of nowhere. It is closer to Fargo, North Dakota than to any of the big Great Lakes cities including the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. Why does this geography lesson matter? Winnipeg deserves so much more credit than the typical hockey fan gives them.
In the 2019-2020 season, Winnipeg finished sixth in the Western Conference with a 37-28-6 record. Not only do the Jets have the reigning best NHL goalie, but they are loaded with high flying scoring talent on the wings. If you are trying to avoid airplane puns, one could just say the Jets have one of the best groups of top-six forwards in the NHL.
Lacking the dominating scoring superstar like McDavid or MacKinnon, the Jets had five forwards that averaged .82 points per game last season. That is to say, that had the season not been stopped in March of 2020 because of COVID-19, five of the Jets top-six forwards were on pace to score 65 points. That is as many 65 point pace scorers as Western Conference competitors Dallas, St. Louis, and Vegas combined.
Leading the Winnipeg forward core is center Mark Scheifele. Scheifele tallied 73 points in 71 games last season and is truly a goal-to-goal player. NHL Network just named the 26-year-old the 18th best player in all of the NHL, although18th for Scheifele is the absolute lowest he should rank as he is as close to Sidney Crosby‘s level of a complete player as anyone playing today.
Complimenting Scheifele are wingers Kyle Connor and Blake Wheeler. Connor matched Scheifele point for point with 73 and has scored 30 or more goals in each of his three full NHL seasons. Wheeler, at 33-years-old, is the most experienced veteran presence of Winnipeg’s big guns and has played at a point-per-game in each of the past five seasons.
Elite scoring and elite goaltending is an excellent place to be as a hockey team. In Winnipeg however, it looks like the team is having trouble keeping all of their high octane pieces running and that brings up the first big question facing the Jets in 2020-21.
4. What will happen with Patrik Laine?
The 22-year-old Finn was drafted second overall by Winnipeg in 2016 and has scored at a 30 goals pace every year since. He is an absolute shoot first sniper with a career-high of 44 goals. As one of the NHL’s best scorers, it only makes sense that Winnipeg would make this a long term relationship.
After Laine’s Entry-Level Contract expired, both sides agreed to a two-year deal at $6.75 million a season. This is a rather common occurrence for young players who are Restricted Free Agents upon the expiration of a contract until the age of 25. It is commonly referred to as a “bridge contract”, as in it is the bridge to receiving a huge deal in a player’s prime.
Laine’s bridge deal is up after this season and, unless re-signed, will be a Restricted Free Agent. Winnipeg owns his signing rights and would receive draft pick compensation if a team were to sign him under these circumstances. Likely draft pick compensation for Laine would be a First and Third-Round draft pick on the lowest end of his value.
This scenario rarely plays out for various reasons and the NHL reevaluating the Restricted Free Agency compensatory process is a whole other can of worms. But why is this all a discussion at all? Laine’s motivation is unclear. Last season he arrived back in North America from Finland much later than comfortable for Winnipeg fans, and just last week his agent made some comments about how a trade would be mutually beneficial for both sides.
It could be that Winnipeg just is not the most desirable situation for NHL players. Aside from being cold, it is small compared to most NHL cities. The taxes on player salaries in the Canadian province of Manitoba, where Winnipeg is located, is about 17%, compared to Florida where the state income tax is 0%. This paints a picture as to why Winnipeg traded away Jacob Trouba to the New York Rangers in his contract year.
It could also be that Winnipeg has been taking steps back ever since its 2017-2018 Conference Finals appearance. Either way, there is trouble in paradise when it comes to Patrik Laine and the Winnipeg Jets.
3. Can Paul Stastny still be an effective second-line center?
The term is “top-six” forward group, not “top-five”. To solidify the forward group the Jets traded for center Paul Stastny from the Vegas Golden Knights during the offseason. Stastny rejoins Winnipeg after a couple of seasons with Vegas. The transaction was, by far, the team’s most impactful offseason move.
Chemistry, one would think, will not be a huge roadblock. Stastny is templated to be linemates with Nikolaj Ehlers and Patrik Laine for as long as he is around. The three have already played together in the past and, while Stastny is at risk of having lost a step, Ehlers and Laine have been nothing short of outstanding.
The 35-year-old center has not scored more than 20 goals or more than 55 points since leaving the Colorado Avalanche after the 2013-2014 season. Stastny’s 14 years of NHL experience brings more than firepower to an already loaded forward core. Winnipeg is hoping for a fountain of youth to take him back at least a few years in age and drive play for a truly dynamic group of offensive forwards.
2. Do the Jets have the defense to get the job done?
Since reaching the Western Conference Finals four years ago, the following defensemen have left the team: Dustin Byfuglien, Ben Chiarot, Toby Enstrom, Dmitry Kulikov, Tyler Myers, and Jacob Trouba. That is one outstanding defense. Three of those left Winnipeg as Free Agents and one was traded away before he hit the open market.
Whether those defensemen wanted to stay put or not does not matter because the vast majority of the team’s cap space is tied up in paying for a ton of offense. The issue is the rate that all of these positions have needed to be replaced.
The Jets’ top defenseman is Josh Morrissey who is signed long term and has twice tallied over 30 points on the season. The biggest question surrounding him is whether or not he is a true top pairing guy or a perfectly capable top-four blueliner. The only other current long-term commitment on defense belongs to Dylan DeMelo. DeMelo was acquired last season in a trade with the Ottawa Senators and proved dependable enough to garner a four-year extension.
When trading away Jacob Trouba the Jets very specifically wanted to fill his shoes. In the Trouba deal, the Jets acquired both Neal Pionk and a 2019 First-Round Draft pick. Pionk was sensational last season, scoring 45 total points in his first year in Winnipeg, a number that nearly doubled his previous career-high.
The 2019 Draft pick ended up being the 20th overall draft choice and with it, the Jets selected Finnish Defensemen Ville Heinola. If you paid attention to the World Junior Championships, Heinola was a very good puck-moving defenseman for team Finland. Heinola is also one of only five players drafted in 2019 to have already made his NHL debut. I think that Heinola is capable of making a dark horse Calder Memorial Trophy run like Adam Fox did last year for the New York Rangers.
The Jets have the offense and the goaltending. If these four young defensemen can take strides forward it will be hard to imagine the Winnipeg Jets not competing for the top spot in the North Division.
1. Can the Jets separate themselves from the middle of the pack?
It has been three years since Winnipeg has been more than just a playoff qualifier. Going back to their days in Atlanta, there is not a lot of winning tradition for the franchise. These Jets have elite scoring and one of the best goaltenders in the NHL.
With a limited amount of cap space, the team could excel with how they are built. A bunch of individual 70 point seasons, as well as a Vezina season in net, is not beyond the realm of possibility. We saw exactly that unfold last year. Depth will be a huge concern because of how top-heavy the team is built.
In this year’s North Division scenario if Winnipeg’s weapons do not play well consistently they can easily become buried in the standings and not only hold a low seed in the playoffs they could be on the outside looking in come playoff time. Toronto is the most high-powered team in the North and only got tougher this offseason while Edmonton has the most high-powered player in the whole league in Connor McDavid.
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Any team in the NHL could fall behind Toronto and Edmonton and consider it a success. In what will be a very heated North, Calgary, Montreal, and Vancouver are also all coming off of playoff appearances a season ago. Being a middle of the pack team in Canada will most likely mean going home well before anticipated.
Really this is the biggest question that ties the others together. Let us say Winnipeg re-signs Laine midseason, Paul Stastny looks like the player he was in Colorado, and their defense plays even just slightly better than average. Does that lead to an elite hockey team?