Friday Four: How Jets can get back in the playoffs

If you were ranking the teams that fell well short of expectations during the 2025-26 season, the Winnipeg Jets might be at the top of the list. Winnipeg was coming off a Presidents’ Trophy campaign and had real Stanley Cup aspirations. Instead, the Jets plummeted 34 points down the standings and missed out on the post-season for the first time since 2022.

It won’t be an easy road back, either. While the Jets were struggling, the Central Division became a gauntlet. The Colorado Avalanche are a juggernaut, the Dallas Stars still have very few weaknesses and the arrival of Quinn Hughes, as well as the emergence of Matt Boldy, have really taken the Minnesota Wild to another level.

Plus, the Utah Mammoth seem poised to join the league’s top-tier teams sooner rather than later.

This means the Jets have a lot of work to do if they hope to be playing hockey next spring and that work starts this summer by figuring out the future of Connor Hellebuyck. If the Olympic gold medallist returns, it will make Winnipeg’s quest to get back to the playoffs that much easier. If he gets dealt, the Jets would almost surely lose the trade and make an uphill climb even steeper, forcing Winnipeg to contemplate a retool or rebuild.

That said, the task is not impossible and here are four things the Jets can do to help themselves find their way back to the post-season.

Spread the offence around

Despite a lack of team success last season, the Jets did boast some great individual performances. Mark Scheifele topped 100 points, Kyle Connor eclipsed the 90-point mark for the third time in his career and Gabriel Vilardi had a personal best of 30 goals and 69 points. That trio was dominant as a top line, but it was a major drop-off from there.

The Jets got another solid year from Josh Morrissey, but next to nothing from the rest of their forward group and became easier to defend without a balanced attack. No other forward had more than 13 goals or 32 points, as Winnipeg really felt the loss of Nik Ehlers and no one was able to fill the void. If you look at the Jets projected forward group today, it looks very similar to last year and if Winnipeg plans to play Scheifele, Connor and Vilardi together again for over 660 minutes as they did in 2025-26, you can expect a similar lack of secondary scoring.

Ideally, head coach Scott Arniel wouldn’t want to break up that top unit, but he doesn’t really have a choice. Bumping someone down to play on the second line would give the Jets more balance and potentially create two groups that are scoring threats. Vilardi might be the obvious option to shift down, as Scheifele and Connor have so much chemistry playing together.

The Jets could try to move someone up like Nino Niederreiter or even the 22-year-old Brad Lambert to play with Connor and Scheifele, while Vilardi and Cole Perfetti would give them a pair of potent wingers to anchor the second group.

It's really hard to win as a one-line team, especially in a division as deep as the Central. Winnipeg needs to get creative and spread out the offence to help prop up other players because as good as Scheifele, Connor and Vilardi were together, splitting them up gives the Jets the best chance at success.

Elevate Cole Perfetti

Splitting up those aforementioned talented three would also really help Cole Perfetti, who took a step back last season. Perfetti went from 18 goals and 50 points in 2024-25 to 12 and 32 this past campaign. The loss of Ehlers was perhaps felt by Perfetti the most, as the duo skated together for well over 50 per cent of their even-strength shifts when Perfetti delivered that strong season.

Perfetti did get to play with Vilardi at times in 2025-26 but not often enough. There were plenty of shifts for Perfetti with Jonathan Toews, Adam Lowry, Vladislav Namestnikov, Alex Iafallo and others, who simply can’t create offence at a consistent enough rate. The Jets need to ensure Perfetti plays with at least one player who has a creative offensive skillset.

Now that Perfetti has also inked a five-year, $30 million extension, Winnipeg has to give him more responsibility, too. His ice time has hovered in the 15-minute range per game over the past two seasons, but it should be closer to 18 minutes a night going forward and he should be a mainstay on the first power-play unit. Perfetti is closing in on 300 NHL games and will turn 25 in January, so he should be ready to carry more of the load on his shoulders.

“That’s my expectation, is to take another big leap and another step,” Perfetti told reporters earlier this week. “The management has, obviously, put that faith in me. Now it’s my job to go out there and play and live up to those expectations and I’m very excited for that.”

The Jets didn’t make any kind of significant offensive splash in free agency, so they’ll be counting on Perfetti to take a big step forward.

Give Viggo Bjorck a real shot to make the team

That underwhelming offseason for Winnipeg means it will have to fill some holes internally. The organization has been hesitant to promote young players in recent years, instead choosing to be patient and incorporate prospects like Lambert, Brayden Yager and Elias Salomonsson slowly. That’s usually a prudent approach, but this Jets roster is stale and could use an injection of youth in the worst way.

This should make first-round pick Viggo Bjorck an intriguing option for Winnipeg to consider inserting into its lineup right away. The eighth-overall pick in June was considered a bit of a steal for the Jets, as our own Jason Bukala had Bjorck slotted in at number four in his final draft rankings. A right-handed centre who is slightly undersized, Bjorck is highly skilled who played well for Sweden at the World Championships and could fill a number of different roles for the Jets.

Not only would Bjorck bring some energy and excitement to the lineup, but he could end up filling a real need as well. After Scheifele, Winnipeg’s centre depth looks something like Lowry, Namestnikov and Morgan Barron. That’s very thin and lacking offensive ability.

Lowry is a fine player but he scored just five times last season and finished with 21 points. It’s hard to imagine a playoff team having a second-line centre with those types of numbers.

You definitely don’t want to rush an 18-year-old into the league that’s not ready, although we’ve seen recent examples of teams using a similar strategy to improve their lineup. The Pittsburgh Penguins come to mind last season, when they utilized their 11th-overall pick from the 2025 draft Ben Kindel immediately. Many thought Kindel couldn’t handle middle-six responsibilities so soon, but he didn’t look out of place and finished with 17 goals.

He also gave a stagnant Pens roster a real shot in the arm and Pittsburgh improbably ended up making the playoffs.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Bjorck will follow in Kindel’s footsteps, but if he can prove he deserves a chance to play this fall, the Jets shouldn’t hesitate to give him a shot.

If Hellebuyck is back, make sure he stays fresh

It’s still far from a guarantee Hellebuyck is a Jet next season, although the importance of getting the most out of him can’t be overstated should he return. The three-time Vezina Trophy winner saw his numbers dip last season, partially because of the team in front of him and possibly because he’s logged a lot of miles in recent years.

Hellebuyck has played 60-plus games in four of the past five campaigns, and still managed 57 appearances last year despite missing about a month with injury. In fact, only Juuse Saros has played more games (312) since the start of the 2021 season than Hellebuyck (310). That doesn’t even include the post-season and games at the 4 Nations Face-Off or Olympics over that span.

He also started 10-straight games down the stretch for Winnipeg in March and April, as the Jets made a late desperate attempt to get into the playoffs. Hellebuyck is still one of the league’s elite goalies, but at 33, playing that much hockey isn’t a recipe for success.

The Jets signed Stuart Skinner in free agency, finally giving them a suitable backup for Hellebuyck to receive a few more days off. Skinner isn’t a game-changer in net, but he boasts a .902 career save percentage and has the experience of being between the pipes on two Edmonton Oilers Cup Final runs. He should at least be able to comfortably give the Jets 30 or so games.

That means Winnipeg can reduce Hellebuyck’s workload to around the 50-game mark, which will hopefully see a bounce-back in numbers from the .895 save percentage he delivered last season.

If the Jets can exchange a dozen or so fewer games from Hellebuyck to get his overall numbers back to well above league average, they’ll surely take it. Now they just have to convince him to stay.