The Winnipeg Jets are aiming to be the best team in the NHL this season — but in June rather than April.
After claiming the Presidents’ Trophy last season for posting the most regular-season points (116), the Jets will try to rinse and repeat while improving enough to win the Stanley Cup.
It won’t be an easy start, with three key players on the shelf before the team even opens the regular season at home Thursday against the Dallas Stars.
Second-line winger Cole Perfetti is out week-to-week after suffering a high-ankle sprain in the club’s final pre-season game last Friday.
“It’s not the best news we wanted to get,” Winnipeg head coach Scott Arniel said after Sunday’s practice.
Second-pair defenceman Dylan Samberg broke his wrist during a Sept. 27 game and is out six to eight weeks, while captain Adam Lowry won’t return until late October or early November as he recovers from hip surgery.
“It’s just what happens in hockey,” Jets star defenceman Josh Morrissey said of the injuries. “We’ve got lots of depth here, and guys that are going to have to step up in some big absences to start the year.”
Former Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, a three-time Stanley Cup champion, joins Lowry with an injured non-roster designation to start the season.
Toews, 37, is making a comeback with his hometown team after missing two seasons with health issues. He sustained an undisclosed injury in Winnipeg’s 3-2 pre-season loss to Minnesota on Sept. 30 but practised with the Jets on Sunday.
Earlier in training camp, Morrissey said players can’t rest on last season’s accomplishments or look ahead to the playoffs.
“It’s one thing to have a great performance, but it’s another to be able to back it up,” he said. “That’s got to be the thought individually throughout the lineup and then as a team. Our battle is trying to go to another level.
“When I say [last season] is in the past, you learn from the past, right? So I think that’s something that should give us a ton of experience, a ton of confidence. It also sets the template for us.”
Winnipeg (56-22-4) had the league’s best power play last season, boosted its penalty kill to 13th and showed its strength in team defence.
Goalie Connor Hellebuyck had his name etched on the William M. Jennings Trophy for the second consecutive season as the netminder on the team with the fewest goals against.
Hellebuyck also took home the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player and claimed a second straight Vezina Trophy as the top goalie. He posted a 47-12-3 record with a 2.00 goals-against average, a .925 save percentage and eight shutouts in 63 appearances.
The Jets won a gritty opening round against the St. Louis Blues with a double-overtime Game 7 victory. They advanced to the second round for the first time since 2021, but fell in six games to the Stars.
In his second year as head coach and fourth with the club, Arniel views last season as growth. Now he wants the players to ramp up one key element.
“All those things need to be in place, our defending, our offensive game, our specialty teams, but I’d like to take our battle level [up],” Arniel said. “We can win more battles.”
The team will attempt to do that with some new personnel.
Winnipeg lost speedy winger Nikolaj Ehlers in free agency to Carolina, as well as forwards Mason Appleton (Detroit) and Brandon Tanev (Utah), but gained Toews and veteran winger Gustav Nyquist.
Nyquist, 36, wants to bounce back from his output last season while splitting time between Nashville and Minnesota (six goals and 30 points in 83 games).
“For me, personally getting up there a little bit in age and haven’t gone all the way, looking at this team just from a hockey perspective, this was a great opportunity for me to come play really good hockey,” Nyquist said.
Perfetti was supposed to start the season on the wing with Toews and Nyquist, but Nikita Chibrikov is now getting a look on that line after signing a two-year extension.
Winnipeg’s top line stays intact, with Mark Scheifele between Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi.
“We have a great team, so we just want to try to emulate what we did last year,” said Scheifele, who had 39 goals and 87 points in 82 games last season.
“We had a great year. We know we have a great team. That should give us confidence.”
Connor, a pending unrestricted free agent, led the team in scoring with 41 goals and 97 points in 82 games.
His agent has been talking with the Jets about a contract extension, but the gifted winger isn’t publicly discussing it while he stays focused on his play.
When asked if Minnesota forward Kirill Kaprizov’s recent historic eight-year, $136-million US deal ($17 million annually) set the bar for himself and other elite players, Connor said each team is different.
“The one thing it says is the league is in a really good spot financially,” he said. “I think every circumstance is so different, it’s hard to say if it really affects anybody else.”
