{"id":660872,"date":"2026-09-12T15:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T15:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/660872\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T15:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T15:06:13","slug":"scheifele-still-believes-in-winnipeg-jets-even-with-hellebuyck-trade-request-looming-following-disappointing-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/660872\/","title":{"rendered":"Scheifele \u2018still believes\u2019 in Winnipeg Jets, even with Hellebuyck trade request looming following disappointing 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winnipeg Jets<\/a> superstar centre Mark Scheifele<\/a> says he still believes in the team, even following a disappointing campaign which saw the team finish 26th in the NHL and former Hart Trophy-winning goaltender Connor Hellebuyck<\/a> request a trade in the off-season.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old Scheifele – the long-tenured member of the Jets and a member of the team since it was moved to Winnipeg in the 2011-12 season – is an alternate captain and coming off the most productive season of his career, where he scored 36 goals and finished with a career-high 103 points.<\/p>\n

That was one of the few bright spots for the team this past season, as the Jets finished 35-35-12 and missed the playoffs for the just the second time in their past nine campaigns. That followed an impressive season two years ago in which they won the Presidents\u2019 Trophy before falling in the second round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Scheifele is entering year three of a seven-year, $59.5 million contract extension, which is the exact same contract Hellebuyck signed in the off-season in 2023. The two star players signed matching contracts following conversations with management that general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff characterized as \u201cheart-to-heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hellebuyck is not convinced the team can compete for a Stanley Cup title and went public with his trade request in August<\/a>. Per The Athletic\u2019s Murat Ates, Hellebuyck is not expected to attend training camp<\/a> while he waits for a resolution on the trade front.<\/p>\n

Scheifele is viewing the team in a different light than his superstar teammate: \u201cI still believe in this team,\u201d he said at the NHL media tour in Las Vegas this week.<\/p>\n

Scheifele highlighted the ability of teammates such as Josh Morrissey<\/a>, Kyle Connor<\/a> and Gabriel Vilardi<\/a>, pointed out the influx of team speed in off-season additions, citing Mario Ferraro<\/a> and Stuart Skinner<\/a> as \u201csome really good pieces\u201d and praised Winnipeg\u2019s top young players, including this year\u2019s top draft pick Viggo Bj\u00f6rck<\/a>, Elias Salomonsson<\/a>, and Brayden Yager<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old Yager was selected with the 14th-overall pick in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a>, and was acquired in a trade ahead of the 2024 season in exchange for Rutger McGroarty<\/a>. Yager put up 30 points in 68 games with the AHL\u2019s Manitoba Moose a season ago, and made his NHL debut with the Jets in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get the chance to skate with him, it\u2019s not just him watching you and then going home,\u201d Yager said of Scheifele\u2019s attention to detail in their practice sessions in August. \u201cHe watches you and tries to help you with your game, which is an even better quality. As a leader, he cares about his future teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were to watch him, you\u2019d think he\u2019s just doing backhand passes and turning,\u201d Yager said. \u201cIf you ask him about it, it\u2019s so much more detailed than what it looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scheifele is entering his 16th season with the team, and is the Jets\u2019 franchise leader in games (961), goals (372) and points (907). He\u2019s taken a completely different outlook than teammate Hellebuyck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited for the future, too,\u201d Scheifele said. \u201cWe think we got a really good player in Viggo. And at the same time, I was in Winnipeg and skating with Brayden Yager<\/a>, who looks really good. He looks like he had a great summer of training. Brad Lambert<\/a>, even Danil Zhilkin<\/a>, and I skated with him a couple of times in the summer. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe got some young guys, Elias Salomonsson<\/a>, who obviously had surgery in the offseason but showed some real promise last year. I\u2019m really excited to see some of the young guys come into their game and hoping I can be a part of helping them learn the game a little bit, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jets open their preseason schedule against the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> on Sept. 19, before playing their season opener on Oct. 2 against the Boston Bruins<\/a> in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winnipeg Jets superstar centre Mark Scheifele says he still believes in the team, even following a disappointing campaign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5121],"tags":[4759,5,78,4,77,18,32441,5288],"class_list":["post-660872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg-jets","tag-apple-news","tag-hockey","tag-jets","tag-nhl","tag-winnipeg","tag-winnipeg-jets","tag-winnipeg-jets-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-52","tag-winnipegjets"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117258694451635174","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660872","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=660872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}