This was an especially easy year for the Winnipeg Jets to get lost in the shuffle.
From the surprising success of the Vancouver Canucks to the astonishing early struggles of the Edmonton Oilers to the amount of oxygen constantly sucked up by the Toronto Maple Leafs, conversations about Canadian NHL clubs tended to focus on other squads.
Really, a lot of fans outside Manitoba probably stopped monitoring the Jets closely when Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck inked huge extensions on the eve of the season and their hockey futures suddenly stopped being a league-wide focus of speculation.
Well, for anybody not paying enough attention to Winnipeg — something many are guilty of at the best of times — it’s time to wise up.
With their 6-2 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday, the Jets are now 6-0-1 in their past seven — surrendering just 1.7 goals-per-game in that stretch — and 14-5-0 since Nov. 4, which puts them in a tie with Philadelphia (yep) for the third-best points percentage (.733) in the NHL during that timeframe.
Eight days ago, Winnipeg lost its top goal-getter — Rocket Richard hopeful Kyle Connor — to a knee injury, and since then top-line wingers Nikolaj Ehlers and Gabe Vilardi have stepped up to combine for 12 points in three outings.
And that’s the thing with this club: Players have been rising to the occasion at different times all year to make it work.
Early on, the results weren’t great. Winnipeg was 4-4-2 out of the gate, but might have been worse had Connor and Mark Scheifele not been playing so well at a time when Hellebuyck was searching for his A game and the second line wasn’t much to speak of. Also, guys like Mason Appleton and Adam Lowry were helping things go with some surprising production from the third line.
By the time we flipped to November, Cole Perfetti started showing his top-six promise, putting up 15 points in 15 contests to help drive the second unit. He’s gone a bit cold now in the past half-dozen games, but Vilardi and Ehlers — who was sitting on just two goals through his first 14 contests — have hit their stride.
And then there’s the big guy in net.
In the aftermath of signing his seven-year, $59.5-million extension — a twin contract to the one Scheifele agreed to — Hellebuyck did not look like a goalie who’s won the Vezina Trophy and finished top-4 in voting on three other occasions.
But since Nov. 4, the American is tied with Thatcher Demko for the league lead in wins (11) and his .932 save percentage is bested only by Adin Hill (.941) and Cam Talbot (.934) among stoppers with at least six games of action.
This season has not been a smooth road for Winnipeg. Connor’s injury looks like it will keep one of the best snipers in the game out until February. D-man Ville Heinola, a first-rounder who appeared ready to crack the NHL, instead fractured his ankle in training camp and hasn’t played a shift this year. In his third game with the Jets, Vilardi — the key acquisition in the deal that sent Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Los Angeles Kings — sprained his MCL and watched more than a month of action. And, of course, coach Rick Bowness had to step away from this club in late October after his wife, Judy, suffered a seizure.
Everybody had Bowness’s back and Scott Arniel took the coaching reins until Bowness could return.
Today, Bowness guides a team with tied with the Dallas Stars for the fifth-best points percentage (.655) in the Western Conference. Basically, the Jets are hanging with the top contenders in the West, a fact everyone inside and outside Manitoba should be giving ample consideration to.
Other Takeaways
• If the Jets are at least a mild Central Division surprise, the Predators register as something more than that. Nashville had the third-worst points percentage in the entire NHL (.333) just over a month ago, but has gone 13-3-0 in its past 16 outings after downing Carolina Hurricanes 6-5 on the road Friday night and the Capitals 3-1 24 hours later at Bridgestone Arena. Like Winnipeg, this is largely about a top-flight goalie finding his way as, after some early struggles, Juuse Saros is 10-1-0 in his past 11 with a .933 save percentage. At the other end of the ice, Filip Forsberg — who scored the overtime winner versus the Canes — has been outrageous with an even 9-9-18 line in his past 16 contests. The 29-year-old Swede is on pace for the first 90-point campaign of his career on the heels of last winter’s frightening concussion that abruptly ended his 2022-23 campaign in February. Meanwhile, Roman Josi — who picked up a goal and three assists on the weekend — has 10 points in his past seven outings after he, too, battled a concussion last year that ended his season in mid-March. Then there’s Ryan O’Reilly, who scored his 13th goal of the year against Carolina and is tracking a 30-goal season nobody outside Tennessee saw coming.
First-year coach Andrew Brunette has his squad comfortably above the playoff cutoff line, which is not something that looked possible a month ago.
• And still sticking with the Central, Nathan MacKinnon continues to cook. With a four-point effort in Sunday’s 6-2 dismantling of San Jose, the Avs centre has put together a 15-game point streak and is averaging dangerously close to two points-per-game in that time with 27 total.
• The idea Brad Marchand would one day be tying Bobby Orr for most points in Bruins history would have seemed, uh, farfetched once upon a time. But with his 888th career point — an assist in Friday’s shootout win over the Islanders — the Bruins captain has done just that.
Weekend Warrior
In career game No. 859, 33-year-old Adam Henrique netted his first NHL hat trick on Sunday. Naturally, it came against Henrique’s old club, the New Jersey Devils. Believe it or not, if Henrique finishes the year in Anaheim — and there’s more than one contender that might like to add the pending-UFA for a playoff drive — he’ll have one more career game with the Ducks (456) than with the Jersey team (455) he sent to the Cup final with an overtime marker in the Eastern Conference final nearly 12 years ago.
Red and White Power Rankings
1. Vancouver Canucks (21-9-2) Saturday’s shootout loss in Minnesota and Sunday’s victory in Chicago marks the start of a stretch in which the Canucks play 11 of 14 away from home.
2. Toronto Maple Leafs (16-6-6) After hanging seven on the Penguins on Saturday, the Leafs have suddenly struck for 19 goals in their past three outings.
3. Winnipeg Jets (18-9-2) We didn’t touch on Winnipeg’s defence at the top of this piece, but Josh Morrissey — with two assists on Saturday — is very much on pace to land around the 76 points he put up last year during his monster breakout campaign.
4. Edmonton Oilers (13-14-1) Zach Hyman, who scored the lone Edmonton goal in Saturday’s 5-1 loss to Florida, is on pace for about 55 tallies this year. That means, in his first three years with the Oilers, his goal totals could very conceivably look something like this: 27, 36, 47.
5. Montreal Canadiens (13-13-4) Okay Josh Anderson, you can finally breathe. On Saturday night, Anderson scored his first non-empty-net goal since March 13. It felt so good he fired another one during a 5-3 victory over the Islanders.
6. Calgary Flames (12-14-5) Jonathan Huberdeau has yet to find himself in Year 2 with the Flames, but defenceman MacKenzie Weegar sure has. The 29-year-old scored his eighth goal of the season in Saturday’s 4-2 victory over Tampa Bay, matching his previous career best less than halfway through the season. Weegar and Huberdeau will see their old teammates when the Panthers visit Calgary on Monday.
7. Ottawa Senators (11-15-0) It just seems like Ottawa is playing an endless game of one step forward, two back this year. The Sens have now dropped four straight following a 6-3 setback in Vegas on Sunday night.
The Week Ahead
• The Canadiens start their annual huge holiday roadie in Winnipeg on Monday while Cirque du Soleil invades the Bell Centre. Montreal won’t play a home game again until Jan. 4.
• Jakob Chychrun, who has nine assists in his past six outings, visits his old friends in the desert on Tuesday when the Coyotes host the Sens.
• The annual 10-day roster freeze begins at 11:59 p.m. local time across the league on Tuesday night.
• Saturday’s slate features a Stanley Cup rematch between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Panthers. Perhaps Jack Eichel — who just set a franchise record by going 10 straight games with a point on Sunday — will still be on a run. That’s it for three days, as arenas go dark from Sunday through Dec. 26. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, friends!