{"id":408037,"date":"2026-01-14T23:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/408037\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T23:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:17:10","slug":"winnipeg-jets-place-neal-pionk-on-ir-recall-elias-salomonsson-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/408037\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg Jets Place Neal Pionk On IR, Recall Elias Salomonsson \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Winnipeg Jets announced today that they have <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WpgJetsPR\/status\/2011528846131282331\" rel=\"nofollow\">placed<\/a> defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/pionkne01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-14_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Neal Pionk<\/a> on injured reserve. In a corresponding move, they recalled defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/salomel01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-14_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Elias Salomonsson<\/a> from their AHL affiliate, the Manitoba Moose. Pionk\u2019s IR placement is retroactive to Jan. 13.<\/p>\n<p>Pionk was labelled as week-to-week with an undisclosed injury today. Pionk missed the Jets\u2019 game last Friday with a foot injury, but there is no word at this time if Pionk\u2019s injury news today is related to that ailment.<\/p>\n<p>Losing Pionk on a week-to-week basis is a significant blow to the Jets\u2019 hopes of climbing out of the lower rungs of the NHL standings. He\u2019s Winnipeg\u2019s No. 2 defenseman in terms of ice time, averaging 22:47 per game. That includes 2:48 time on ice per game on the penalty kill, the highest among Jets blueliners. He also skates 1:35 per game on the power play, quarterbacking their second unit.<\/p>\n<p>As the Jets as a whole have experienced a significant year-over-year downturn, Pionk\u2019s production has suffered. He scored 10 goals, 39 points in 2024-25 but has just eight points in 40 games this season. But even as Pionk\u2019s offense has declined to uncharacteristically low levels this season, the Jets are still likely to find it difficult to replace what he brings to the table.<\/p>\n<p>The Jets\u2019 recall of Salomonsson from Manitoba doesn\u2019t signal the club\u2019s intention to utilize the young blueliner as an exact one-to-one replacement for Pionk. Instead, he\u2019s likely to see some of Pionk\u2019s vacated minutes, while other Jets defensemen are also likely to see a bump in ice time.<\/p>\n<p>Salomonsson , 21, was a second-round pick of the Jets at the 2022 draft, and made his North American pro debut in 2024-25 in Manitoba. He became a steady top-four force for the Moose, scoring 35 points in 78 career AHL games. Salomonsson earned his first NHL recall earlier this season, skating in a total of four games. He averaged 14:43 time-on-ice, including a little over a minute per game short-handed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Winnipeg Jets announced today that they have placed defenseman Neal Pionk on injured reserve. In a corresponding&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5121],"tags":[2095,5,78,2001,4,77,18,5288],"class_list":{"0":"post-408037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg-jets","8":"tag-elias-salomonsson","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-jets","11":"tag-neal-pionk","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-winnipeg","14":"tag-winnipeg-jets","15":"tag-winnipegjets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115896008265609563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}