Since I discovered the whole linking of YouTube videos to an article’s cover photo, I decided that I would add recaps of the Winnipeg Jets minor league affiliate to Arctic Ice Hockey. These often won’t involve a ton of observations from me on the Manitoba Moose’s performance, but the stat packages & linked recap video should give us fans a better idea how well the Jets’ future players are doing. Let me know in the Comment section if this is something you will regularly check out?

To provide a little background on what Manitoba’s 2025-26 AHL campaign has looked like so far…the Moose kicked things off well by knocking off the Laval Rocket in their home opener, but then dropped 5 straight contests while getting out-scored 22 to 9. Coach Mark Morrison’s club finally got his first road victories of the year when his players swept a 2 game set versus the Tuscon Roadrunners, but that was followed by a 3 contest losing skid against the then winless Texas Stars.

Just as I was beginning to think that this is going to be another long & painful season to watch Manitoba, a switch went off and suddenly all the new players seemed to understand what was required of them in the Moose’s defensive system. Since November 8th, the minor league club has been deploying a style of hockey that would be familiar to those who watched the Jets play last year. Good gaps, strong forechecking & backchecking, and quality goaltending have resulted in Manitoba outscoring the opposition 11 to 5 as they piled up 3 straight wins. As a result of this, they have now moved up the standings of the AHL’s Central Division (as seen below, courtesy of theAHL.com):

For your information, the top 5 franchises in the Central will qualify for the playoffs, with the 4th & 5th placed clubs playing a best of 3 game series in the 1st round of the AHL Playoffs while the top 3 teams get a bye into Round 2. Manitoba will be returning to the Canada Life Centre for a 6 game homestand, starting off with a pair of contests versus the Chicago Wolves, the team they are currently neck & neck with.

Okay, before I get to recapping the Moose’s most recent game, lets take a gander at their top 15 offensive performers (courtesy of theAHL.com):

Obviously none of Manitoba’s skaters have lit up the scoresheet in the early part of the season, but that is hardly surprising given that the Moose are sitting in 25th with 35 goals scored to date. They have done a bit better defensively, allowing the 16th least goals against (42)….yet the recent display of goal scoring prowess and shutdown hockey has inspired some optimism.

One of the biggest issues for the club early on is that their top defensive duo of Ville Heinola & Kyle Clague are getting beat up. Probably not surprising when you consider they are both under-sized defenders that play a similar offense first style of hockey….then you add in Ville lining up on his off-hand and you get some interesting outcomes in the defensive end. The 2nd pairing of Elias Salomonsson & Isaac Phillips has been much stronger, while veteran Ashton Sautner is typically paired with a rotation of d-men on the 3rd duo.

The recent changes to the forward units has seemed to provide the missing offense, as Brayden Yager, Samuel Fagemo, & Phillip Di Guiseppe have found quite a bit of success in the past 4 contests. Fellow rookie Colby Barlow’s start to his professional career hasn’t been ideal, with his offensive impact being almost non-existent in way too many games. The young winger worked on his skating in the off-season and while I do see progress being made…he still looks pretty slow at times. Ideally, Barlow could thrive on a line that could gain the offensive zone without his involvement, starting a cycle that eventually ends with someone setting him up to release that ever dangerous shot. Unfortunately that hasn’t occurred often enough, as the kid has struggled to get more than one shot per game. He has looked more dangerous since being paired with Jaret Anderson-Dolan and had a few decent looks in last night’s contest.

Other forwards like David Gustafsson, Walker Duehr, Danny Zhilkin, & Mason Shaw have also chipped in offensively, sort of making the entire top 9 equally capable (or incapable) of scoring.

Finally, lets take a look at how the young tenders have done for Manitoba this year (courtesy of theAHL.com):

Due to the nature of the AHL schedule and its affinity to back-to-back games, it is often fairly hard to ride one starting goaltender in the minor league. That being said, typically the #1 guy is the one who starts off a 2 game set, so we still kind of know who the coaching staff is favouring at any given time. To begin the season, it was Dominic DiVincentiis that had earned that trust, but a string of average or worse starts has seen Thomas Milic usurp that role. To my untrained eyes, both goalies have delivered some excellent starts and have played a big role in all of the Moose’s victories this year. Dom & Tom have fought the inconsistencies common with young goaltenders, ranging between excellent starts (8 combined) and average/poor ones (7 combined). Now that is going solely on the save percentage numbers, which might not be entirely fair since Manitoba played some pretty bad defense in front of them early in the season. To drive that home a bit, since the club has began playing more responsibly, the tenders have had 6 straight starts with save percentages over .906%.

Well, that is the end of the wrap up section….future recaps will only contain the following information:

The Manitoba Moose (6-6-2) were looking to end their 5 game road trip on a positive note, as they tried to extend a 3 game winning streak against division rivals Rockford IceHogs (7-6-1). Here is how things played out for the Winnipeg Jets’ minor league affiliate on Saturday night.

GAME STATS

SHOTS: Rockford 35 Manitoba 29

PP: Manitoba 0 of 2 Rockford 0 for 3

After falling behind in the opening period, Manitoba broke things open in the middle frame with an unheard of 4 goals in a period for the Moose. Colby Barlow played a big role in the first goal for our club, as he drove to the net to receive a pass that ended up bouncing in off the defender attempting to cover him. Ville Heinola spotted Walker Duehr hanging around Rockford’s blueline and sent him in on a breakaway with a nice stretch pass to extend the lead shortly after.

After the IceDogs tied things up, a short-handed 2 on 1 lead to a tic-tac-toe passing play that ended with Danny Zhilkin tapping the puck into a wide open cage to give the Moose the eventual game winning goal (and his 2nd of the match). A turnover in the neutral zone sprung Samuel Fagemo for another breakaway to stretch the lead before the game went south in the 3rd period, as Rockford opted to go into Goon mode as scraps & game misconducts became common occurrences until the final horn. Unfortunately, Manitoba’s powerplay couldn’t make them pay for their bad behaviour, despite holding a 5 on 3 advantage for the final minutes of the game. To be fair, they really weren’t pushing hard to get a 6th goal, as they probably didn’t want to upset the opposition further.

THREE STARS

Thomas Milic earned his paycheck on Saturday night, making quite a few big stops on highly dangerous scoring chances. Its hard not to cheer for the chronic underdog goalie, especially since he has proved everyone wrong at every level of hockey he has played.

A fun & entertaining win for the Manitoba Moose as they work their way up the Central Division standings. The squad will get a bit of break, as they don’t suit up again until Nov 20th at the CLC. Perhaps by then they will have some new players in the line up? Brad Lambert, Nikita Chibrikov, & Parker Ford all don’t require waivers to be sent to the minors, so they are the most likely to be demoted once (if) the Winnipeg Jets can get completely healthy.

If you haven’t already, click the Play button on the article’s main picture for YouTube’s recap of the Moose game. Enjoy your Sunday.