Winnipeg celebrated one marquee free agent signing on Tuesday, but Jonathan Toews’ homecoming — already announced, now official — was not the story of Winnipeg’s July 1.
The Jets’ lack of reinforcements is a bigger story. Signees Cole Koepke and Tanner Pearson don’t make up for the loss of Nikolaj Ehlers, nor will they match the impact of contingency plans like Brock Boeser, who re-signed in Vancouver for seven years at $7.25 million AAV. Winnipeg is a Presidents’ Trophy-winning team that gained Toews but lost Ehlers, Brandon Tanev, and Mason Appleton. Winnipeg has also signed Phil Di Giuseppe to a one-year, two-way contract, according to PuckPedia. Di Giuseppe is a 2025 Calder Cup champion who has split time between the NHL and AHL for most of his career.
This gives Winnipeg one of the league’s strongest cap positions: $21 million in space, according to PuckPedia (prior to Toews’ performance bonuses). It ensures a lack of albatross contracts, unless Toews is just healthy enough to play a lot of games but not impactful enough to help. The Jets can boast that they did not sign Mikael Granlund to a three year, $7 million contract and, as the season continues and Winnipeg accrues cap space — and the opportunity that comes with it — we can point to the Jets’ misses on July 1 as a source of strength as opposed to weakness.
Winning in the NHL is about more than efficiency, though — it is about accumulating the most impactful collection of on-ice talent. Winnipeg has established an exceptionally high floor: Connor Hellebuyck, Josh Morrissey, Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Dylan Samberg, Neal Pionk, Gabriel Vilardi, and Cole Perfetti are an impressive core of players. Adam Lowry is a throwback shutdown centre who has delivered second-line results, while Toews may be able to fit productively into the Jets’ middle-six. The Jets are committed to their five-on-five structure and got brilliant results from their power play. What they have not accomplished so far this offseason, given the comparison of outgoing vs. incoming talent, is finding another level of on-ice talent to insulate against those long playoff nights in St. Louis or Dallas.
But this is not a Winnipeg Jets hit piece. The Jets’ relative lack of success on the depleted free agent market needs to be acknowledged, particularly given Ehlers’ courtship by Carolina, Washington, and Tampa Bay, among others. Acknowledgment should come with context, however — Winnipeg is not a marquee UFA destination. Toews’ signing was celebrated by so much of the fanbase because he is the exception, not the rule. We’ve seen the no-trade clause data; we know the Jets’ UFA history. Winnipeg was never going to be able to sign Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand, and Aaron Ekblad for a combined cap hit of under $20 million.
Where do the Jets go from here? What do Pearson and Koepke bring and what might Kevin Cheveldayoff still have in store?
Those are the questions that matter now. It’s contingency plan time. Winnipeg is a highly probable playoff team, with questions about its ceiling, and our playoffs postmortem indicated a need to get harder to play against in the middle of the ice. The loss of Ehlers is navigable, but Winnipeg has to replace his offence. The UFA market may not provide that: The top remaining forwards include Pius Suter, Jack Roslovic, Andrew Mangiapane, Gustav Nyquist, and Appleton. Mangiapane has extra appeal for the number of pucks he wins on the forecheck, but these are not top offensive players.
Winnipeg’s biggest successes have always come from the trade market and that’s where I think the Jets could look.
Take Ehlers, for example. Carolina and Washington may have ample cap space to sign Ehlers, but the Rangers and Lightning are capped out. If Ehlers gets close with New York, it would necessitate another move. Will Cuylle ($3.9 million, just re-signed) would command a lot of interest if New York shopped him, while Alexis Lafrenière ($7.45 million) has often been the subject of trade rumours. Tampa Bay’s path to cap space for Ehlers is murkier, but I understand that they’ve expressed interest and always manage to clear cap space. (The problem with that concept? Almost everyone making substantial money on the Lightning has no-trade protection of some sort.) The point is that, when making Ehlers a “Jet for life” is Plan A and Boeser is Plan B, and the Jets are still trying to improve their team as secondary and tertiary options sign elsewhere, Winnipeg may need to make aggressive, proactive moves via trade. New York and Tampa Bay aren’t the only cap-strapped teams, nor is the silly season of UFA spending over quite yet.
It is normal, expected, and potentially even advantageous for the Jets to miss out on free agents. $21 million is enough to sign restricted free agents Samberg, Vilardi, and Morgan Barron without pause. It leaves space for Winnipeg to re-sign Kyle Connor before he reaches free agency on July 1, 2026, and to extend Perfetti — ideally before time spent on the top power play inflates his price.
It also leaves Winnipeg with the following roster.
LWCRW
Kyle Connor
Mark Scheifele
Gabriel Vilardi (RFA)
Vladislav Namestnikov
Jonathan Toews
Cole Perfetti
Nino Niederreiter
Adam Lowry
Alex Iafallo
Cole Koepke
Morgan Barron (RFA)
Tanner Pearson
Jaret Anderson-Dolan
David Gustafsson
Parker Ford
LD
RD
Josh Morrissey
Dylan DeMelo
Dylan Samberg (RFA)
Neal Pionk
Logan Stanley
Luke Schenn
Haydn Fleury
Colin Miller
Ville Heinola
G
Connor Hellebuyck
Eric Comrie
Again, it’s a playoff team, in all likelihood. Its defence corps hasn’t changed, while its forward group loses Ehlers, Appleton, and Tanev while gaining Toews.
There’s lots of quality here, while also leaving room for Brad Lambert or Nikita Chibrikov to compete for a full-time NHL job. Pearson, 32, is a hard-working player, smart, and a good teammate, who is said to benefit from teams like Winnipeg that play with good structure. He’s a slow skater, though, and may or may not be an everyday player. Koepke played shinny Pionk’s house as a kid, plus high school and collegiate hockey with Samberg, and remains close friends with them both. He plays with a lot of energy and was one of the NHL’s hits leaders with 177 for Boston last season.
I asked Koepke about the role his snowbank battles with Pionk played in his NHL bodychecks.
“I definitely started throwing hits on Neal [Pionk] in the Holiday Cup a long time ago,” Koepke said with a laugh. “And I work out with Neal and Dylan … We all have gone back to Hermantown, Duluth area, and we spend a lot of time together… They’re really good friends and great people.”
Pearson listed Scheifele, Alex Iafallo, Logan Stanley, and Luke Schenn among his friends and said he called Schenn for the lowdown when it looked like signing with the Jets could be real. Pearson won a job in Vegas from a tryout offer last season and says all of the one-year contracts have left him hungry to prove himself.
Taken at once, Winnipeg’s July 1 additions are a good story.
They’re not an upgrade over what fell short in the playoffs, unless the marquee free agent Winnipeg did sign — Toews — plays like he did when he was 27. That’s an unfair expectation — give Toews space to be whatever player he is capable of being — but it would be one great story for the city.
(Photo of Kevin Cheveldayoff: John Delaney / NHLI via Getty Images)