Ville Heinola is an interesting case of once highly touted to stuck in between the NHL and AHL.
Injuries, long stints in the minors, and hardly getting any NHL ice time seemingly derailed his career before it even started.
The 20th overall Winnipeg Jets selection in 2019 has a significant drop in playing time after suffering a broken ankle in the 2023 preseason. Heinola played 41 games with the Manitoba Moose following his recovery and seemed ready to earn more NHL ice time in 2024-25.
While the latter part of that last statement was true, Heinola suffered a second setback on the same ankle, this time an infection that caused him to miss significant time to start the year. He recovered and played two more games with the Moose on a conditioning loan, leading to a strong performance in a short time.
Heinola followed up that conditioning loan with 18 games for the Jets, posting just one assist in that time. Things would get rocky as the Jets began chasing their franchise-best season and locked in their lineup consistently. This left Heinola in a situation where it was harder to find himself in NHL game action, and it would end up becoming weeks and sometimes months before he suited back up.
In Heinola’s past five games, he played three in January on the 7th, 14th, and 16th before finding himself back in the lineup in February on the 22nd. His final game of the 2024-25 season was on April 13th before he was sat for the Jets’ 2025 Stanley Cup Playoff run.
It certainly makes it hard for any player to sit between games for that long, but in Heinola’s case, he’s been plagued with injuries and sitting in the press box for long stretches of time over the past two seasons may affect him more this year. With more competition for the defending Presidents’ Trophy winners and veteran players pushing him down the depth charts, the conversation surrounding the waiver wire has started swirling around Heinola’s name.
The Jets are in a curious situation, as they have nine NHL defensemen on their active roster, and unless they make a trade from now until the start of training camp to shore up depth, someone has to go on waivers. It’s likely to be Heinola because of how things played out throughout his past few seasons, and given the chatter surrounding Heinola that he may be traded for a change of scenery that happened at the beginning of the offseason, it’s better late than never.
A number change from 14 to 34 this season may be another change the former first-round pick needs. Anything to get Heinola going and rotating in the lineup is a positive step, but the barrier of nine defenseman on the roster doesn’t work.
Heinola will be one of the biggest question marks in the 2025-26 season, and given the depth, the need to perform now, either Ville Heinola ends up with a new team, or looks to fight his way out of the AHL for yet another season.
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