The Winnipeg Jets are through 10 games of their 2025-26 season and the once-small statistical sample sizes are getting less so.
Trends are beginning to emerge for every team and numbers begin aligning with those trends with some degree of accuracy around now. No longer can stats be written completely off as “flukey” or “inflated” or “not reflective” of a team’s performance.
Here, we’ll dive into 10 notable numbers for the Jets, who are off to a 7-3-0 record under second-year head coach Scott Arniel but have not been elite.
14: Points For the Team
While not the prolific 9-1-0 they were through 10 last season en route to their record-setting 15-1-0 start, the Jets are in a decent position at 7-3-0 to sit second in the Central Division.
They have not played their best hockey every game nor have they been particularly consistent period to period, but the fact they’ve gone over .500 thus far without Adam Lowry, Cole Perfetti, and Dylan Samberg in the lineup should be considered a win in and of itself. The first month-plus of their season was always going to be about at least treading water until those three returned from injury.
15: Points for Mark Scheifele
Mark Scheifele, coming off a career-high 87 point 2024-25, is playing like a man possessed thus far with eight goals and seven assists for 15 points.
The 32 year old has at least a point in every game but one and looks like a man dead set on not only helping the Jets challenge for the Presidents’ Trophy again, but also on cracking Canada’s 2026 Winter Olympics roster.
5: Points for Jonathan Toews
How well Jonathan Toews would do in the NHL after a two-season hiatus due to illness was a big question mark heading into the campaign. So far, the 38-year-old has performed better than many expected he would after such a long layoff, with two goals and three assists for five points in second-line centre and second-line power play roles.
Related: Jonathan Toews Gets His Fresh Start with the Winnipeg Jets
He recorded his first point in his third game of the season and his first goal — his first since April 13, 2023 — in his sixth.
Winnipeg Jets center Jonathan Toews celebrates a goal against the Calgary Flames (James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images)
Toews, historically strong in the dot, has not lost a step there either — he has won 64.51 per cent of his faceoffs, which leads the team’s regular centres.
27.27: Power-Play Percentage
Teams who take penalties against the Jets continue to pay for it. The Jets’ power-play units have looked decent to good so far despite Nikolaj Ehlers’ departure, Perfetti being out with a high ankle sprain, a slower start for power-play whiz Gabriel Vilardi, and new personnel in Gustav Nyquist and Toews still getting comfortable on the second unit.
Coming off a season where they posted an NHL-best 28.90 per cent efficiency under then-new assistant coach Davis Payne, the Jets have gone nine for 33 on the power play for a 27.27 per cent efficiency and currently sit eighth league wide. They have spread the wealth around as six players have at least one power-play marker and nine have at least one power-play point.
The Jets’ first power-play unit Mark celebrates Mark Scheifele’s goal against the Nashville Predators. (James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images)
In fact, power-play success is one of the main reasons the Jets’ record is what it is, because they haven’t been very good at five on five (we’ll explore that later.)
The power play should get even more dangerous when Perfetti, who was expected to take the Ehlers’ spot on the top unit, returns and when Vilardi, who has only one power-play goal this season but led the team in 12 last season, heats up.
90.48: Penalty-Kill Percentage
The Jets penalty kill has been a massive strength so far, posting a 90.48 percentage and only allowing four goals while scoring two shorthanded goals. The results are all the more impressive given Lowry and Samberg, two penalty-kill mainstays, haven’t played a game yet this season.
The Jets’ regime down a man has improved greatly since assistant coach Dean Chynoweth came on board prior to last season. He helped them jump from 21st in the league in 2023-24 with a 77.13 per cent kill rate to 13th in the league last season with a 79.40 per cent kill rate, and now has his units looking like some of the league’s best.
42: Times Shorthanded
Unfortunately, to the frustration of Chynoweth and Arniel, the Jets have cut ruts to the sin bin and have made their penalty killers work way too hard. They have been shorthanded a whopping 42 times, fifth-most in the league.
To give up more than four power-play opportunities per game is uncharacteristic of the Jets in recent history. Last season, discipline was a team hallmark as they gave up the sixth-fewest power-play opportunities and an average of only 2.42 per game. In 2023-24, gave up an average of 2.92 per game.
While it’s possible refereeing crews are calling these early-season games a little tighter and will ease off on the whistle blowing as the campaign deepens, the Jets nonetheless need to improve their discipline.
25: Goals Against
The Jets came into the season as back-to-back William M. Jennings Trophy winners (awarded to the team that allows fewest goals allowed in the league) but have some work to do if they want to capture it for a third-straight campaign.
Connor Hellebuyck and Eric Comrie have been strong in the crease, combining to save 9.3 goals above expected, but some uncharacteristic defensive breakdowns and poor second periods have led to 25 goals against, which is still third-least in the league but more than the Philadelphia Flyers. Last season, they allowed only 2.13 goals per game.
39.53: 5-on-5 xGF%
It’s a good thing the Jets’ special teams have been so good, because they haven’t been good at even strength at all.
The Jets have 23 goals for and 21 goals against at even strength, which may seem ok. However, that actually flatters their very concerning 39.53 five on five expected goals for percentage (xGF%), which is actually dead last in the entire league by almost three percentage points. That XGF% is not becoming of a contender nor is it sustainable, and it needs to get closer to 50 per cent because power-play production and penalty-killing prowess can be fickle.
Five-on-five is not something the Jets have generally struggled at over the past few seasons; in fact, strong five-on-five play has been a key part of their identity since Rick Bowness came on board in 2022-23 and totally revamped the team’s systems over his two seasons behind the bench. Last season, Arniel’s first, the Jets had a plus-63 goal differential at even strength and a 52.44 xGF% at five on five.
2.26, .926: Connor Hellebuyck’s Goals Against Average and Save Percentage
Hellebuyck, fresh off winning his second-straight and third-career Vezina Trophy and being the first goaltender in a decade to win the Hart Memorial Trophy, is playing as expected.
Related: Connor Hellebuyck Is Once Again the Heart of the Winnipeg Jets
The workhorse netminder and Jets cornerstone had a rough first start where he allowed five goals on 37 shots, but since then, has allowed three-plus goals just twice en route to a 5-3-0 record, 2.26 goals against average, and .926 save percentage through eight starts.
Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck poke-checks the puck from Calgary Flames center Justin Kirkland (Brett Holmes-Imagn Images)
When Hellebuyck is locked in as he so often is, there is no better goaltender in the NHL and it’s remarkable how him being a Vezina favourite has become business as usual to some extent. His presence gives the team confidence to take some calculated risks and can snag them wins when the offence or defence aren’t clicking.
The Jets will have to clean up a lot in their next 10-game stretch to get back to the level they played at for a lot of last season, but they will take every point and run to be certain. Game 11 of the campaign goes Thursday, Oct. 30 when they host the Chicago Blackhawks at Canada Life Centre.
