F*ck Your Teams: Why I Hate the 2025-2026 Winnipeg Jets | NHL Season Preview

The Winnipeg Jets just put together maybe the best season in the history of their franchise. The question is this year, are they going to be able to top it by making it all the way to the Stanley Cup finals? Forget me for you should forget it. You’re living in the past, man. The Winnipeg Jets entered the 2024 25 season with expectations that they would be a pretty good team. not an elite team that they turned out to be with Connor Hellbuck backstopping them and career years from guys like Kyle Connor, Nikolai Eelers and incredibly stout defensive core with guys like Dylan Dlo, Josh Morrisy, Dylan Samberg and more as well as incredible depth down their lineup. The Winnipeg Jets went on to win the President’s Trophy as the best team in the regular season. In the first round of the playoffs, they faced the lowly St. Louis Blues, an upstart team with a nice story who had squeaked into the playoffs but really posed no threat to the Winnipeg Jets. At least that’s what we all thought. And then Connor Hella kind of [ __ ] down his leg, putting the Winnipeg Jets behind the eightball and eventually making this easy first round series go to seven games. In the seventh game, the Jets were on the ropes. They were almost out of it. They were down goals with the net empty. And then something magical happened. They scored. and they scored again to force overtime with under two seconds to go. And then they scored in overtime to win the whole damn thing. After skirting out this improbable win in game seven, it seemed like it was destiny that the Jets would go all the way to the finals. Then they ran into a little team called the Dallas Stars in the second round and their luck ran out. Hellbuck played better in this series than he did in the first round, but it just wasn’t quite enough. The Stars were an absolute juggernaut and they plowed on through and eventually made it to the Western Conference Finals, adding another chapter to the curse of the President’s Trophy winners. Don’t turn your back on me. Let’s get one thing straight. This is shooters tour. I’ve worked hard my whole life, paid my dues, and now it’s shooters turn. The Winnipeg Jets entered this season with a board core that’s largely the same as it was last year with one notable exception. Nikolai Eers left in the off season to join the Carolina Hurricanes in free agency. And while his production will be missed, the Jets certainly still have a lot of firepower. On the first line, you have an elite setup man and Mark Shipley along with a very good goal scorer in Kyle Counter who just got inked to a big extension. Don’t want to make the same mistakes he did with Eers. But on their right side is going to be Gabe Bolardi, a guy that they picked up in the pure Luke Dubois trade a few years ago and has developed into a pretty nice player. Wouldn’t say he’s a first liner, but he’s pretty good and definitely a legit top sixer. The second line center is their big free agent acquisition in Jonathan Taves. Wait, Jonathan Taves, hasn’t he retired? No, not not really. Okay. Um, he’s 37 years old and was kind of ineffective in his last season with Chicago, but I guess it’s worth it. I would have just made him an assistant coach. I don’t know what you’re expecting to get out of that brittle body. And Tapes won’t get a lot of help on that line with a rookie left winger in Nikita Chibberov, who’s not exactly a household name as a prospect. Another free agent acquisition in Gus Nyquist who is, you know, a fine guy for your middle six, but not exactly a huge differencemaker at this stage in his career. Their third line actually might legitimately be better than their second line. They got guys like Vlad Nomesticov, Alex Ayafalo, and Nino Netherriter. I’m not saying any of those guys are like game breakers, but they’re all pretty solid. The fourth line, a bunch of character guys like Morgan Baron and Cole Keepky and Tanner Pearson. Is he still alive? Huh, good for him. But they’re also starting the season with Adam Lowry and Cole Proffetti on the IR, so they’ll get a boost when those two guys are back. In addition to Chubber, among the Jets best forward prospects, you have guys like Brad Lambert, Kobby Barlo, and not Rucker McGory, Brandon Joerger. All we hear is about that defense. They can’t stop a nose bleed. On defense, the Winnipeg Jets are stacked. And that’s before you even consider that they have Dylan Samberg on IR. Their top pairing of Josh Morsy and Dylan Deo isn’t the sexiest, but those are two guys who can absolutely shut down an opponent’s top line, and they’re both very good in the transition game. In the second line, you got Neil Pian. Another guy who on most teams could be a number two guy, but he’ll be paired with Hayden Flurry, who to put it kindly is a reclamation project and probably is going to end up being an abject disaster. On the bottom pairing though, you’ve got the ultimate number five guy and Logan Stanley paired up with Luke Shen, another old guy who is still hanging around somehow. But for what you’re paying him, if you can get 15 minutes a night out of him, it’s worth it. As far as defensive prospects, the Jets really only have one of note in Elias Salomonson. But the fact that a guy like Hayden Flurry beat him out for a roster spot is indicative to me that he needs another year in the minors to build up his game. Wait, it’s not Goldberg. It’s here. Take it. the in goal for the Winnipeg Jets. It’s the reigning Vzna Trophy winner and league MVP in Connor Hellabuk. Despite what happened in the playoffs, I maintain that he is the best goalender in the entire NHL. And he is a guy that I would bet all of my money on to lead a team on a deep playoff run. And the Winnipeg Jets did just that when they locked him up a couple of seasons ago to a big-time extension. And what’s most notable about Hellbuck is that he is one of those old school workhorse goalenders. He can play like 60 games a year and be absolutely as good in the last game of the season as he was at the beginning. His backup Comry, congrats on collecting them checks and probably not getting too much action unless Kellbuck gets hurt, which God willing won’t happen. But for all my praise, it really is for Hellellabuck that come down to what he does in the playoffs because as I mentioned, it was not great last year. You ain’t going to be able to hit them. They’re too good and you suck something off. Yes sir, I sure do. Now, Scott Arneil is the head coach of the Winnipeg Jets, and he’s a guy who has really cut his teeth in the NHL over the last decade and a half. It’s impossible to deny what he did with Winnipeg last year in the regular season, and how he kept them from falling apart in the playoffs, which was quite frankly very impressive. Them losing to a very good Dallas team doesn’t really bother me that much. And I’ll be really interested to see what buttons he pushes this year to get even more out of this Winnipeg Jets team. Since you’re new here, uh, I’m going to cut you a break. With the Jets kind of up against the cap and that being a reason why Eelers ended up not returning, the Jets made a couple of value signings and betting on older guys that could maybe give them some good contributions at the end of their career. Gustav Nyquis is a little bit of a sure gamble in my opinion. You’re probably reliably going to get 30 to 40 points out of him this year. For Jonathan Taves though, it’s a big unknown. I mean, at the end of his career with Chicago, he was downright horrible. He’s been out of the league for a couple of years now, so maybe he’s had the chance to heal up. Or maybe there’s just way too much rust for him to knock off in a single season. And the fact that he’s starting off the year on IR is already pretty concerning to me. Pretty good. Pretty damn good, lads. When you’re talking about the best defenseman in the NHL, Josh Morsy’s name rarely gets brought up, but I’m going to bring it up here. This guy is quietly one of the most solid number one defenseman in the entire NHL. He doesn’t put up the flashy point numbers like Mar or Hughes Worinsky or Fox, but he is a locked down number one guy. His opponents have a miserable time going against him. And he’s a guy when you look at the advanced analytics, you always wonder, should he be in Norse trophy conversations more often? I’ll give you a winter prediction. It’s going to be cold. It’s going to be gray. then it’s going to last you for the rest of your life. Where the Winnipeg Jets don’t make the playoffs this year and they’re probably going to be one of the best teams in that loaded Central Division. The big question is going to be can they do it in the playoffs? And unfortunately, it is such a dog fight. I don’t know if it’s going to happen. They’re going to need Hella Buck to be prime Hellbuck in the playoffs if they want to have a chance of getting by a team like the Avalanche or the Stars. And even then, if they have a team like the Edmonton Oilers just waiting for them in the Western Conference Finals, it’s going to be a tall order for them. I have hope, but I don’t have expectations that they’re going to go much deeper than they did last year. [Applause] [Music] Hey, [Music]

Note: this was recorded prior to the season. I have not edited based on early-season games.

The Jets won the President’s Trophy last year and STILL managed to underacheive. Can they finally make it to the Cup finals this year?

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