A last-second comeback can’t disguise the fact that the Winnipeg Jets enter the 2025-26 campaign with a pressing need to do more when it counts.
No team in the league has won as many games as the Jets’ 108 during the past two seasons, and Winnipeg took the Presidents’ Trophy with 116 points last year.
However, if not for a frantic Game 7 comeback that saw the squad score twice in the final two minutes of regulation time against the St. Louis Blues — before claiming a double-OT victory on a goal by Adam Lowry — the Jets would have endured a third straight first-round exit last spring. As it stands, the Jets were bounced by the Dallas Stars in Round 2.
A structured, disciplined team that’s mastered regular-season hockey clearly needs to figure something out when it comes to the playoffs.
That said, optimism will justifiably be in the crisp, Manitoba air when Winnipeg hits the ice for camp. While a key figure was lost in the off-season in the form of departing UFA Nikolaj Ehlers, the presence of native son Jonathan Toews — making his return to the NHL after two full seasons away from the league — creates a unique buzz around the team and city as it prepares for a new year.
Add Toews’ presence to the strong core stacked on top of the goaltending of back-to-back Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck and the Jets are on target to once again scrap it out with Western Conference heavyweights Dallas and Colorado for top spot in the Central Division.
What happens after that, however, will determine whether this club has actually taken a step forward.
Salary Cap Space: $3,963,810
GM: Kevin Cheveldayoff
Head Coach: Scott Arniel
Assistant Coaches: Marty Johnston, Davis Payne, Dean Chynoweth, Wade Flaherty
Unsigned Players: None
Key New Additions: Jonathan Toews, Gustav Nyquist.
What We’ll Learn During Training Camp
Will Kyle Connor sign an extension before camp ends?
Any 2026 UFA talk tends to centre on Connor McDavid and Kirill Kaprizov, but Winnipeg has its own situation to monitor with potential UFA whale Kyle Connor. The Michigan forward and top-line fixture is coming off a career-best 97-point showing last season and turns 29 in December. Seven months after that, he’s eligible to hit the open market.
Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has already done some nice work in the past six months when it comes to contracts, inking top-four defenceman Neal Pionk to a six-year extension before he could test free agency and agreeing to terms on a six-year deal with RFA Gabe Vilardi — Connor’s runningmate on the top line with Mark Scheifele — in the summer.
The closest parallel for Connor, of course, is the situation Winnipeg was in two years ago when both Scheifele and Hellebuyck came to camp just 10 months away from the chance to become UFAs. On the eve of the 2023-24 campaign, the Jets pillars inked identical seven-year, $59.5-million deals to stay with the team. Today, those $8.5-million cap hits are bargains for a goalie who gets MVP votes and a top-line centre.
Chances are — with the cap seriously spiking in coming years — a Connor contract will require a club with numerous team-friendly deals to bite down and offer up a big number.
Jets fans would surely feel better about the season starting if Connor becomes yet another locked-up member of the core before puck drops on Oct. 9 versus Dallas.
What will Jonathan Toews look like?
Even the most enthusiastic Jets fan is surely trying to temper optimism about Toews’ potential, as the three-time Cup champion returns from chronic inflammatory response syndrome.
Of course, we — and Toews himself — won’t know for some time how his body will hold up to the grind of an NHL season. Still, good sense figures to go out the window a bit as observers watch every drill and shift of pre-season action to see if the old Toews — or at least a big percentage of him — still lives inside that 37-year-old frame.
This will be one of the biggest storylines, not only of Jets camp, but in the entire NHL.
Can Elias Salomonsson do anything to crack the blueline?
His first year of North American pro hockey did nothing but reinforce the notion that Elias Salomonsson can, one day, be a major contributor to the Jets defence corps.
The question: Is there any chance that day comes as soon as October?
The tall, right-shot defenceman put up an impressive 27 points in 55 games last winter with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose. There’s every chance Salomonsson comes to camp and looks ready for an NHL look. Even if he does, though, it’s hard to know whose spot he could take, and the last thing the Jets want is for Salomonsson to be rotating in and out of the lineup instead of munching minutes with the Moose.
That means, barring a Bobby Orr-like showing, the talented 21-year-old Swede will likely spend one more season — or at least a part of it, depending on injuries — in the minors before really pushing for a spot next September.
Bold Prediction
Two over-35 players aiming for comebacks of sorts will get a second-line shot together and make it work. We all know Toews is going to get a look at 2C, with the hope being he can eventually fill what’s been — off and on — a hole for Winnipeg in the past handful of years.
And while Gustav Nyquist isn’t trying to return from anything akin to Toews’ health concerns and extended absence, the 36-year-old Swede is attempting to rediscover the form that saw him post 75 points with Nashville just two years ago during the 2023-24 campaign.
With Cole Perfetti poised to keep blossoming on the second line, we’re betting a trio of Toews between Nyquist and Perfetti starts the year looking like a nice complement to the entrenched top unit of Scheifele between Connor and Vilardi.
Projected lineup
Forwards
Kyle Connor-Mark Scheifele-Gabe Vilardi
Gustav Nyquist-Jonathan Toews-Cole Perfetti
Nino Niederreiter-Vlad Namestnikov-Alex Iafallo
Tanner Pearson-Morgan Barron-Cole Koepke
Defence
Josh Morrissey-Dylan DeMelo
Dylan Samberg-Neal Pionk
Logan Stanley-Luke Schenn
Goalies
Connor Hellebuyck
Eric Comrie
