WINNIPEG \u2014 Many Winnipeg Jets fans have counted the team out of making the playoffs this season, but not the players and their coach.<\/p>\n
The Jets sit 11 points out of the second wild-card spot in the NHL Western Conference with 26 games to go, but remain positive they have a shot at competing in the post-season.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI think our focus every day is just trying to get better as a team, trying to climb that hill,\u201d captain Adam Lowry said after Thursday\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all competitive people. You don\u2019t want to just lay down and forego the season, write off the season because of the spot we\u2019re in. We still believe.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, it\u2019s going to be tough for us to get in (the playoffs), but until they say you\u2019re in or you\u2019re out, we\u2019re going to keep fighting every day to try and push towards that playoff line and try and sneak in.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Jets have 52 points after 56 games (22-26-8). It\u2019s a drastic drop from last season, when they sat at 81 points (39-14-3) after 56 games and went on to win the Presidents\u2019 Trophy with a league-best 116 points.<\/p>\n
Winnipeg\u2019s turnaround quest continues Wednesday with a game against the Vancouver Canucks to start a three-game road trip.<\/p>\n
Jets head coach Scott Arniel said history shows teams can get out of a deep hole and make the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played the St. Louis Blues in the first round of the playoffs last year and played seven games. Go look where they were at this exact time last year after the 4 Nations (Face-Off),\u201d Arniel said.<\/p>\n
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The Blues had 55 points after 56 games last season (25-26-5) and finished with 96 points to grab the second wild-card berth.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we have a great example sitting right in our (Central) division, a team that did it last year,\u201d said Arniel, whose squad lost in the second round to the Dallas Stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you go back, there was a couple teams last year that made a run at it that got in, but St. Louis had a huge gap to close. And every year there\u2019s been a team that has done that, one or two teams, maybe even more.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTo me, it\u2019s take care of your business, just take care of your own business, win hockey games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jets centre Mark Scheifele is also in a why-not-us frame of mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not mathematically eliminated yet,\u201d Scheifele said. \u201cYou can\u2019t focus on a month and a half from now, you\u2019ve got to focus on the next game at hand, the next practice at hand and just keep pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the talk surrounding the Jets has been calls for the team to make some trades by the March 6 deadline, mostly to gain assets if they deal some of their eight pending unrestricted free agents (UFAs).<\/p>\n
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Arniel said he\u2019s talked to general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff about the roster in the last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, you don\u2019t know what that picture is yet because with the Olympics here, everybody\u2019s kind of in a little bit of a holding pattern, the GMs,\u201d Arniel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that everybody\u2019s trying to figure out is it a go, is it a look to next year, is it a situation where a couple pieces maybe help you? That part of it, we\u2019re still in sort of the talking stage on where we\u2019re going to be two weeks from now.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Winnipeg\u2019s UFAs include forwards Cole Koepke, Gustav Nyquist, Tanner Pearson and Jonathan Toews. On defence, it\u2019s Colin Miller, Luke Schenn and Logan Stanley. Goalie Eric Comrie is also on the list.<\/p>\n
Toews signed with his hometown team last summer in a bid to return to action after missing the past two seasons because of health issues. The 37-year-old veteran has seven goals and 12 assists in 56 games.<\/p>\n
The three-time Stanley Cup champion might be a target in trade talks with teams that value his leadership and faceoff skills.<\/p>\n
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Toews said Cheveldayoff hasn\u2019t talked to his agent about a trade or a contract extension, and he hasn\u2019t thought about whether he wants to play next season.<\/p>\n
Would he be open to a trade?<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, I\u2019m loyal to Chevy and to Arnie and (co-owner) Mark (Chipman),\u201d Toews said. \u201cThey gave me a tremendous opportunity to play at this level again with this team this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, there was an adjustment period for the first little while this season. I believe in this team that we\u2019re a playoff-calibre team so that\u2019s where my focus is now.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Judy Owen, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WINNIPEG \u2014 Many Winnipeg Jets fans have counted the team out of making the playoffs this season, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5121],"tags":[1746,71,4260,13015,147,1121,5,78,3862,4492,2604,3522,4,4227,534,84,3698,2222,27,77,18,5288],"class_list":{"0":"post-464117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg-jets","8":"tag-adam-lowry","9":"tag-blues","10":"tag-cole-koepke","11":"tag-colin-miller","12":"tag-dallas-stars","13":"tag-gustav-nyquist","14":"tag-hockey","15":"tag-jets","16":"tag-jonathan-toews","17":"tag-logan-stanley","18":"tag-luke-schenn","19":"tag-mark-scheifele","20":"tag-nhl","21":"tag-scott-arniel","22":"tag-st-louis","23":"tag-st-louis-blues","24":"tag-tanner-pearson","25":"tag-the-jets","26":"tag-vancouver-canucks","27":"tag-winnipeg","28":"tag-winnipeg-jets","29":"tag-winnipegjets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116100574937271395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464117","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=464117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}