Could the Jets Trade Kyle Connor? (If he won’t Re-sign with the Jets)

Could the Jets Trade Kyle Connor? (If he won’t Re-sign with the Jets)

What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to another video. And today we’re going to be talking about the Winnipeg Jets and the possible situation going ahead with Kyle Connor. And now I know a lot of you are like, “Oh my god, you know, first Eers, now Connor, does Connor want out?” Not necessarily. Nikolai Eelers decided to walk in free agency saying that he wanted to go and play for a winner. He wanted to play for, you know, a new team. He wanted a new challenge. And, you know, that’s totally within his right. He goes to free agency and he signed six years with the Carolina Hurricanes. Godspeed Nikolai Eelers. But one thing that really stood out to me during that negotiation between Eers and the Jets was when they signed Jonathan Taves. You know, it was reported after that this was going to be dangled in front of Eers and like kind kind of a ploy to try to get him to resign. Hey, like, hey, would you want to play with Jonathan Daves? Kind of thing. And Eers decided to walk, right? So, he wanted a new challenge. He went to Carolina. And the thing with Eers was he wanted to go to a place where he was comfortable and a place where he wanted to go to try to win. So, you know, you look at other players with their contracts expiring soon like Kyle Connor at the end of the season. Do you think that he’s looking at this Jets roster right now and thinks that, hey, I want to reup here for the next, you know, six, seven, eight years and win with this team? Does he think that he can win with this team? Is that his number one goal? It makes you think, will he resign with Winnipeg? Losing Nick Eers to UFA was tough. Obviously, it leaves a pretty big gaping hole that I don’t believe is truly filled. Uh, but you know, if you lose Kyle Connor, that’s a franchise level sniper, right? That’s a franchise level goalcorer. And if you’re going to lose him, you know, if the Jets start out slow at the beginning of the year or even if they don’t, when Kyle Connor expresses that, hey, I don’t know if I’m going to reup long term with you guys or reup at all, the Jets need to be proactive in making a move. Kind of similar to what happened with the Rantin deal. You know, obviously Miko Ranton didn’t want to leave Colorado in the beginning there. uh he was kind of blindsided by that trade obviously going to Carolina originally before ending up in Dallas, but he was moved mid-season as Colorado wasn’t comfortable with the number that he was asking. And that’s another thing that, you know, I think that Winnipeg needs to look at too. How much money does Kyle Connor want to get paid and are they willing to go there? So, you know, I’m not saying that, oh, they need to ship Kyle Connor out right now, but it’s definitely something that they need to keep in mind. And I’m sure they’re already having ongoing talks and maybe this video doesn’t even matter in a month. Maybe they extend him long term. Maybe he wants to stay in Winnipeg. But if you go back to that locker room cleanout interview from just this past season after the Jets were eliminated by the Dallas Stars in the second round, you know, he kind of alludes to, you know, hey, I have a family. I have to think about what’s best for them and is that, you know, going back to America, right? Kyle Connor obviously from the USA. Uh would he rather go play for, you know, the Detroit Red Wings longterm? Would he rather go back home? Right? There are some questions here. And I’m not trying to be that guy to be like, “Oh, well, Eers is gone, so you know, this team sucks.” Like, that’s not what I’m doing here. It’s just it does Kyle Connor want to be here longterm looking at the roster the way it is now. You know, that is going to have to be a question that I’m sure Jets management has already asked. Uh, but you know, if it gets to the point where he thinks, hey, I’m not going to resign here. Whether they’re in a playoff position or not come the trade deadline, Kyle Connor has to be moved because you cannot lose that type of player for nothing. Bad enough, you lost Nikolai Elers already for nothing. It kind of hurts that you don’t get a return there. Obviously, the Jets wouldn’t have been as good heading into the playoffs without him, but if you lose Kyle Connor, that amount of value cannot go to free agency. That cannot go to market. You would get the moon and the stars back for Kyle Connor. It would be a massive blockbuster deal. And, you know, if you use Kyle Connor as, you know, an own rental with this type of roster, maybe you add a second line forward and then you’re out in the second round. If you lose Kyle Connor, that is catastrophically bad, right? That cannot happen. And if Kyle Connor wants to resign, then this video doesn’t matter. That’s great. We love it. Bring him home, right? Like, this is a franchise level sniper. This is a great player. But if there’s any doubt that you can’t resign him by the time, you know, next season rolls around, you have to at least explore other options because if you don’t and you lose this guy for nothing, it really hurts your team now. and it hurts your team, you know, for the next five years, five, seven years, depending on what the return would be. I would assume that a lot of teams would be lining up for this guy. You know, NHL GMs, they love production. They love goal scoring, right? That’s really hard to find in this league. And Kyle Connor has goal scoring. He’s got production. He’s got speed. He’s got it all. He’s a superstar. Every single team in the league, I’m sure, would be lining up for Kyle Connor. It would be a massive bidding war. And would it reset the Jets? Would it be a little bit of a culture shift? Possibly, right? It would be a little bit of a retool here as the Jets would be losing, you know, one of their best players, if not their best offensive player. But when you take a look at the lineup surrounding him right now, Mark Shley is going to be 33 years old this season, right? And Mark’s going to be one of those players that plays at a high level until he retires. But I don’t think there’s many years of, you know, point-ame Shley remaining, if there are any more, right? And you take a look at the rest of the lineup. Vladimnikov, Ninoitriter. These guys are getting older. Alex Ayafalo. Jonathan Taves obviously is 37 years old, going to be 38. How is that going to work out? Gustav Nyquist recently signed. He’s, you know, 35, going to be 36 mid year. You take a look at the back end. Josh Morrisy, right? He’s getting up there in age. is, you know, if they move on from Kyle Connor, if the Jets decide to do a retool, hey, I bet you you could get a pretty good deal in return for Josh Morris and you could really flip this lineup. This is an organization that has said they will never rebuild. Why not move these players and, you know, come away with an absolute heist? And especially in this market right now where when you take a look at the Pittsburgh Penguins, they’re really the only team selling. And you know as we currently speak you know Brian Rust and uh you know Ricard Raquel those are two players that teams are calling about and they have a very high price right now because there is no other players on the market really. There are no team selling. Everybody is trying to get better right now as they should as I believe you should be as an NHL team. However, a lot of those teams you know they’re just not going to be that good. You know 30 teams can’t make the playoffs right? So we’re going to see what happens uh going forward here. But I really do believe if the Jets were looking to kind of change over their roster a little bit, if things don’t go well at the beginning of the year, Kyle Connor could be a great piece to really reset that. He could bring in, you know, a 1C of the future for you. He could bring in a number one right-hand shot defenseman, right? If you go ahead and you, you know, trade Kyle Connor, if you are looking to maybe rebuild or retool this team a little bit, it wouldn’t be a 5 to sevenyear rebuild. It would be a very accelerated rebuild. You know, obviously expecting that the packages would be huge for uh Connor. And then if you go ahead and move Morrisy as well, keep some of those pieces like Mark Shley, Connor Hella, Dylan Samberg longterm, you could bring in a lot of really good players, a lot of youth players that you have control over. Add that to, you know, a sneakily good prospect pool that the Jets have with Elias Salamance and Braden Jagger, Kieran Walton, Brad Lambert, Nikita Chipperov, list goes on here. The Jets could do a ton. And you know, this would be a very gutsy move by Kevin Chival, but if it becomes a necessary one, it’s one that has to be done. And once again, this is just, you know, a theoretical situation. Maybe the Jets come together, make a deal with Kyle Connor. I don’t think it’s impossible. I think that, you know, he wouldn’t mind staying here. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility whatsoever. I’m just bringing up this scenario where, you know, the Jets have to look at it and if they can bring in a massive package for him, like I’m confident it would be really good young player, you know, with, you know, control under 25, it would be a top level prospect and at least one first round pick in a draft that is absolutely loaded coming up here, right? It wouldn’t be for nothing. And, you know, you might say that that’s a little bit too little for Kyle Connor. I’m sure there would be a bidding war. Uh I’m sure that teams would want him to be able to sign longterm, right? That would probably factor into it, but Kyle Connor could be a really, really hot name, uh, you know, going into the fall here. So, we’ll see what happens, but I just wanted to talk this one out today. I’m not saying any of this happens. Don’t come after me. I’m just saying this is something that, you know, we should probably keep an eye on is this is a high-profile name. But with all that said, everybody, thank you so much for watching. As always, leave a comment down below. What do you think about this? Would you ideally want to keep Kyle Connor or would you like the Jets to move on and maybe restart this team a little bit? Maybe, you know, aggressively retool this team. Uh, you know, I think both options are fun. We’ll see what happens going forward here. Leave your comment down below. Leave a like and subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already, and I’ll hit you guys back with some more Jets content very soon. Enjoy your day, everybody. See you in the next one. Bye-bye.

Kyle Connor has 1 more year left on his current contract with the Winnipeg Jets, and will be a free agent in 2026 unless he’s signed to an extension. He’s one of the highest producing goal scorers in the NHL, and the Jets would love to keep him. However, what happens if he doesn’t want to re-sign with the Jets?

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