The Winnipeg Jets are approaching an inflection point as a franchise. Even the most optimistic view of the team’s core players — Connor Hellebuyck, Mark Scheifele, Josh Morrissey and Kyle Connor — must acknowledge the age of those players and the lack of elite youth chasing down their jobs.

This gives us the opportunity to discuss the Jets’ future through so many oft-contrasting lenses. We can discuss kick-starting a rebuild, moving on from the Jets’ veteran elite “too early” as opposed to too late. We can plan massive draft-day deals, whether looking to add Jason Robertson as an homage to the Carolina Hurricanes and Montreal Canadiens’ acquisitions of K’Andre Miller and Noah Dobson or using the No. 8 pick to move up even higher in the draft. By summer’s end, I’ll make good on reader Fred S.’ recent request: What would I do if lightning struck, the skies parted open and I woke up as Winnipeg’s general manager?

Today, we’re charting Winnipeg’s course back to the playoffs — a feat I sincerely believe the Jets can accomplish — and we’re doing it because I think it’s the Jets’ No. 1 goal. This isn’t a thought experiment — it’s showing how and why I think the Jets can get it done.

A 2027 return to the whiteout is entirely within Winnipeg’s reach. Here’s the Jets’ most realistic route to get there.

1. Keep Hellebuyck

Hellebuyck is a passionate, emotional competitor who arrived at his media exit interview soon after what I imagine was an intense conversation with Jets brass. Even before Hellebuyck spoke, it felt like things were about to get interesting, and my instinct was vindicated when Hellebuyck deep-dived his response to an early question about Winnipeg’s roster.

“It’s hard. Can you get the pieces that you need? Will the players come?” Hellebuyck said. “These are always questions that you have in Winnipeg. I’ve made it my home and I like it here, but the majority of the league doesn’t feel the same way.”

The rest of Hellebuyck’s comments struck me as a challenge to Jets management — something like, “Find a way for us to be better. A Cup is all I want, so I might not be here forever.” But Hellebuyck’s opening remarks did not convey a goaltender with one foot out the door. The image was more like Hellebuyck holding open a giant wooden gate, gazing across frozen prairie, wondering who else might join him in the place he calls home.

If I’m right about Hellebuyck’s short-term challenge and his commitment to Winnipeg, then there is only one route forward.

Winnipeg must fulfill Hellebuyck’s call to arms or prepare to trade him, and Hellebuyck must return to form, lest a mid-30s fall from Hart Trophy-caliber excellence take the weight from his words.

We’ve established the Jets’ lack of interest in a rebuild. I don’t believe they’re in a hurry to trade him for a “win now” package, either. The option they’re left with is to shoot one more shot this summer, making at least one tangible and obvious upgrade to their roster. Winnipeg can save follow-ups for the trade deadline if need be — the cap space will be there and there’s sense in letting the season play out — but I can’t see the Jets keeping Hellebuyck content by failing to make upgrades and then explaining it away.

“It’s hard to get players to come to Winnipeg,” management might say, but Hellebuyck turns 34 next May.

An honest articulation of Winnipeg’s challenges wouldn’t have been too satisfying during exit interviews. It’s hard to imagine it sounding sweeter in September or after another playoff miss. Meanwhile, Hellebuyck can articulate his own concerns — Winnipeg’s poor efforts in clearing rebounds or preventing screens — and they’ll likely feel all the more pertinent after winning gold behind Team USA at the Olympics.

What he can’t do is deliver another .895 save percentage for the Jets. Team effects do influence goaltending results, but Hellebuyck would have stopped 32 more goals from going in had he produced a .916 save percentage — his own career average.

But what of those upgrades?

2. The No. 8 pick

Consider the Jets’ best players and how those players became Jets.

The draft is Winnipeg’s best route to acquiring top-end talent that stays in Winnipeg. A top draft pick is not a guaranteed outcome — Patrik Laine was traded and Nikolaj Ehlers departed as a UFA — but a higher percentage of Winnipeg’s top-drafted players remain with the club than its top trade acquisitions.

If the Jets want help now, though, as I believe they do, then the No. 8 pick is going to be in play whether I think it “should” be or not. Look at the Jets roster as it stands today, including some of its AHL depth:

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Kyle Connor

Mark Scheifele

Gabriel Vilardi

Cole Perfetti

Morgan Barron

Brad Lambert

Nino Niederreiter

Adam Lowry

Isak Rosen

Cole Koepke

Vladislav Namestnikov

Alex Iafallo

Jaret Anderson-Dolan

David Gustafsson

Nikita Chibrikov

Colby Barlow

Brayden Yager

Parker Ford

LD

RD

Josh Morrissey

Dylan DeMelo

Dylan Samberg

Neal Pionk

Haydn Fleury

Elias Salomonsson

Alfons Freij

Garrett Brown

Isaak Phillips

Tyrel Bauer

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Connor Hellebuyck

Thomas Milic

Dom DiVincentiis

Winnipeg’s top line is the subject of much conversation and substantial sample size. Scott Arniel says he hopes not to split Connor and Scheifele next season, which means Winnipeg’s average first-line results in 2024-25 and average first-line results in 2025-26 are likely to repeat themselves. Lo and behold: an average starting point. Behind them, I see a second line with Morgan Barron and Brad Lambert each asked to play higher in the lineup than they’ve done to date and a third line that desperately needs good health and an ensuing return to form.

I’m not beyond approaching Adam Lowry’s partnership with Nino Niederreiter with some optimism. The competing factors are their run of success prior to Lowry’s hip surgery and Niederreiter’s knee ailment vs. their 33-year-old bodies and the hard miles they’ve put on with a physically demanding brand of hockey. On defence, Winnipeg initially signed Haydn Fleury to be a depth defenceman. He’s performed well in key moments, including Game 7 against the St. Louis Blues, but he has not been a lock to win his minutes as an everyday roster player.

Add it all up and a playoff-bound Jets team needs a middle-six forward — ideally a great one — and I think they’re going to try to add one.

These are the top UFA forwards on The Athletic‘s early free agency big board:

Alex Tuch
Bobby McMann
Anthony Mantha
Mason Marchment
Jaden Schwartz

If Marchment or Schwartz were lesser free agents in a stacked UFA class, we might be more optimistic about Winnipeg’s odds of signing them. This leaves the Jets, intent as they are on a 2027 playoff spot, with limited options. It is reasonable to assume the No. 8 pick is in play. What other top-end trade assets do the Jets have right now?

These are the top forwards on The Athletic‘s offseason trade board:

Vincent Trocheck
Jordan Kyrou
Mason McTavish
Elias Pettersson
Shane Wright
Matthew Knies
Blake Coleman
Jake DeBrusk
Robert Thomas
Ross Colton

It’s a deeper list, but Winnipeg can’t acquire anybody on it for recent first-round picks like Lambert or Colby Barlow. Teams might ask about more established players, like Cole Perfetti, but then you’re likely talking about a lateral move.

Kevin Cheveldayoff spoke to the value of second-round picks after obtaining a 2027 second-round pick and a fourth-round pick along with Isak Rosén earlier this year. He was right, but it’s easier to imagine teams stepping up for the immediate reward of a 2026 first-round pick than for a second-round pick at next year’s draft.

This is a predicament and it’s one the Jets built for themselves. It could hurt future editions of the club. But the No. 8 pick should be worthy of a second-line player unto itself and Cheveldayoff’s trade record has more hits on it than misses. If he were to acquire a legitimate second-line upgrade — a 2026-27 version of his 2021 bet on Pierre-Luc Dubois — it would increase Winnipeg’s playoff odds in a way that would satisfy wild-card ambition.

A better third-pairing defenceman? Doable. A “wait and see” with respect to a second top-six forward upgrade? Probably enough to satisfy impatient core players — provided they show up and deliver a playoff spot by deadline day.

3. The “nice to haves” start with special teams

The Jets’ playoff-qualifying non-negotiables are two items long: Hellebuyck being Hellebuyck and a middle six that escapes its 2025-26 black hole and starts winning its minutes again. That’s it. That’s all, even if rebuilding a legitimate Cup contender is further out of reach.

For that matter, If Hellebuyck had delivered .900-plus goaltending and if even one of Gustav Nyquist, Tanner Pearson or Jonathan Toews had been a legitimate second-line forward, the 26th-place Jets likely would have made the playoffs last season. That they managed to achieve mediocrity with Hellebuyck out for a month, Lowry hurt, Luke Schenn playing 46 games and Toews shoehorned into a second-line role might deserve to be treated with more awe than we’ve offered.

There are other, less certain ways for Winnipeg to make the 2026-27 postseason. We’ll call these the “nice-to-haves,” like that extra room you dream of turning into an office. Winnipeg’s power play was mediocre last season; a merely average 20 percent rate would have been worth three or four more goals. Four out of the same five skaters, with Ehlers swapped for Perfetti, led the league in 2024-25. The Jets’ power play scored 21 fewer goals this time around, failing to generate the motion, the number of attack pathways, the puck retrievals or the zone time of the previous year’s group.

Anecdotally, entries were an issue; once in the zone, Scheifele appeared to get stuck on the half wall last season in a way he didn’t when the Jets were scoring at will. The Jets’ penalty kill fell five or six goals short of average, too.

Add the possibility that Perfetti, Lambert, Elias Salomonsson or Rosén have a breakout season — or that Lowry, Dylan Samberg or Neal Pionk return to previous form — and Winnipeg’s playoff odds go up. Each one of these is a maybe. Some of the “best case” scenarios exist in conflict with one another, and it’s tough to flip a coin and land heads six times in a row. But it is reasonable to think one of those bets may pay off relative to the mess of last season.

If the Jets are committed to surpassing the playoff cut line, it’s easy to chart their course. They must pass old rivals in the Blues and Nashville Predators, who each face their own challenges, and the San Jose Sharks, who may be ascendant and uncatchable eventually but didn’t get there in 2025-26. The Utah Mammoth may be out of reach already, but the Los Angeles Kings without Anze Kopitar? A strong season by Hellebuyck could catch the Kings entirely by itself.

The tension between Winnipeg’s desire to win with its core and the work it needs to do to get there could easily outlast the season, but it’s hard to promise a playoff miss — and the top pick that would come with it — with the Jets’ current roster, offseason plans and a modest amount of regression.