The Winnipeg Jets are off to a historic start this season winning 16 of their first 19 games. Credit has largely gone to the usual suspects, new head coach Scott Arniel and reigning Vezina-winning goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. Maybe Jets fans should be giving some of the credit to former winger Patrik Laine.
Okay, Laine is now with the Montreal Canadiens and hasn’t played for Winnipeg since the 2020-2021 season so let us explaine. Early that season the disgruntled Laine was traded for a disgruntled Pierre-Luc Dubois from the Columbus Blue Jackets. Then during the 2023 offseason Dubois was traded to the Los Angeles Kings for a trade package that included Gabriel Vilardi and Alex Iafallo.
Vilardi has been a major contributor to secondary scoring on a high flying Jets team with 15 points in 19 games. That would put him on pace for about 64-65 points if he played out a full 82 game regular season. His current career high in point is 41, which he had in 63 games with the Kings in 2022-2023. He currently is the top line right wing to Mark Schieffele and Kyle Connor who are tied among the Jets scoring leaderboard with 24 points in 19 games. Nikolaj Ehlers is the only other forward with more points than Vilardi.
Another major factor in the Jets success is their league leading power play. Vilardi sees time on the power play’s first unit while Iafallo sees time on the second unit. Vilardi so far this season has 6 power play points while Iafallo has five. Iafallo hasn’t factored on a power play goal Vilardi had a point on and vice versa. The Jets so far have had 20 power play goals this season (entering play Wednesday) which means between them 11 have had either Iafallo or Vilardi play a direct hand.
Villardi has scored at least a point in nine of the Jets past 11 games. The two he didn’t were back to back losses, the Jets only of the season, against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers that saw the Winnipeg score only one goal between the two contests. The loss against the Panthers was also the only game where Vilardi saw less than 16 minutes of ice time (he finished with 14:03) as this season as he’s averaging 18:19 per game.
In Greg Wyshynski’s piece for ESPN about the reasons and sustainability of the Jets early season success, he mentioned how the Jets create offense starting in their own zone. Meanwhile according to Money Puck 23.1% of Villardi’s shifts began in the offensive zone, as opposed to 17.7% in the neutral zone and only 5.2% in the defensive zone. Vilardi’s current “expect goals” is at 6.10, which he’s slightly outpaced with his seven on the season already.
Should Laine be thanked for the Jets impressive start? Maybe that honor should go to Dubois, who was actually traded for the players in question. Dubois was sent to the Washington Capitals after one lackluster season with the Kings, so the maybe-not-so-early returns point to this trade being a complete win in the Jets favor.