After a fairytale season in 2024-25 saw the Winnipeg Jets explode for an NHL leading 116 points to capture the President’s Trophy and bring much joy to the fans of the True North franchise….our favourite hockey club has found themselves in a totally different story in 2025-26. In something more akin to a horror film, the Jets organization has taken a bunch of hits since the franchise’s most successful regular season.

It began when management’s gamble in re-signing star forward Nikolaj Ehlers didn’t pan out, as the speedy Dane opted to relocate to sunnier climates. Then captain Adam Lowry had to undergo surgery in the off-season to deal with a long running hip issue, making the shutdown center unavailable for the early games. Then some horrible luck struck Winnipeg during training camp, as both defenseman Dylan Samberg & forward Cole Perfetti sustained injuries in the exhibition games. Initially, the Jets were able to withstand the stream of woes thanks to a very easy schedule to kick off the regular season….but their style of play was a drastic change from the dominant on ice performances us fans were used to witnessing last year.

Yet there was still hope that once everyone got back on the ice at the same time and the newly arrived players had a chance to adjust, the team would start to play head coach Scott Arniel’s system the way it was supposed to be done. And for the handful of games when Winnipeg was completely healthy, the advanced stats did show signs of last year’ squad…even though the wins weren’t coming as regularly. However, another plot twist occurred when superstar goalie Connor Hellebuyck began having issues with his knee and that ultimately required surgery to deal with. Without one of the best mistake “erasers” on the ice to clean up any messes created by the skaters, the Jets have gone a pitiful 1-4-0 while watching their club plummet in the NHL’s Central Division standings (courtesy of ESPN).

As we can see, the Jets are now much closer to the basement than the #1 spot they held for most of last season. With US Thanksgiving here, that statistically suggests Winnipeg currently has around a 20% chance of qualifying for the playoffs. The timeline for Bucky’s recovery suggested that he was going to need 4 to 6 weeks to get back to game shape, so that means the club has only gotten through 5 of the potential 14 to 19 games the goaltender will miss. That means Hellebuyck’s assistance won’t arrive until it is too late, unless the rest of the Jets’ players can manage to start playing with pace & awareness of where they are supposed to be on the ice in the team’s system.

Can they do it?? I really don’t know. The last game against the Hurricanes didn’t make it appear like it was possible, but that is one of the NHL’s fastest squads so it might be best to wait to see how they respond today before I come to any real conclusions.

The Winnipeg Jets (12-11-0) will be looking to end a 4 game losing streak while avoiding the distinction of becoming a .500 team with another loss when they visit the Nashville Predators (8-12-4). The Preds have picked up victories in their last 2 contests, but those wins are part of only 4 in their last 15 games, which explains why they sit at the bottom of the division standings. Though the Jets’ are only 4 pts ahead going into today’s action, so that suggests it could be a fairly evenly fought affair when the puck drops at 6 pm Central.

Both the Jets & Predators played on Friday night and had to travel to Nashville for today’s game, with Winnipeg coming from North Carolina and the hometown club flying in from Illinois. Let’s continue our look at Winnipeg & Nashville by checking out ESPN‘s team & goaltender comparison numbers for tonight’s late night game (yet another 9:00 pm Central start):

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Nashville has scored the least amount of goals so far this season (62), which is 9 less than the 26th ranked Winnipeggers (71). The Jets are tied for the 7th least goals against (68) while the Predators find themselves tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the 4th most (87).

Top 5 Scorers:

WINNIPEG: Mark Scheifele (30), Kyle Connor (28), Josh Morrissey (23), Gabriel Vilardi (19), & Nino Niederreiter (13).

NASHVILLE: Ryan O’Reilly (18), Filip Forsberg (17), Luke Evangelista (15), Erik Haula (13), & Michael Bunting (13).

Here is how PuckPedia is currently predicting the lines to look like when play gets underway, though with no pre-game skates these are largely based on yesterday’s rosters:

WINNIPEG JETS LINE UP

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NASHVILLE PREDATORS LINE UP

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Well, my stomach is growling audibly so I best wrap this up fairly quickly so I can make some lunch before the Manitoba Moose-Chicago Wolves game kicks off at 2 pm. Going to be a day of watching hockey & snacking for me, with the first light dusting of snow here in Winnipeg making outdoor activities less appealing. Enjoy your weekend.

Go Winnipeg!!!!!

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POST-GAME INFO

Scoring Summary: (courtesy of ESPN)

FINAL SCORE:  

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Game Stats: (courtesy of MoneyPuck)

Expected Goals (all): 

Expected Goals (5on5): 

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BOJA’S Post-Game Thoughts:

I will be adding the post-game data to the article above later Saturday night, once MoneyPuck has time to re-check the numbers….so probably sometime around 10 pm.