{"id":37736,"date":"2025-07-31T20:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/37736\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T20:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:59:07","slug":"dylan-samberg-excited-to-prove-himself-after-signing-new-deal-with-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/37736\/","title":{"rendered":"Dylan Samberg excited to prove himself after signing new deal with Jets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dylan Samberg<\/a> would have liked a longer contract with the Winnipeg Jets<\/a>, but he\u2019s still got a good runway to keep discovering some of the city\u2019s culinary delights.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve definitely found there are a lot of good hole-in-the-wall restaurants around Winnipeg, especially Italian restaurants,\u201d the Minnesota native said Thursday afternoon on a virtual press conference. \u201cIt reminds me a lot of home; just less trees up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samberg can certainly afford to nosh at his favourite places after inking a new three-year, $17.25-million pact with the Jets on Wednesday. In a perfect world, the deal might have included more years, like the six-year contracts the squad signed with Gabe Vilardi and Neal Pionk<\/a> in the past weeks and months.<\/p>\n

Still, with an arbitration hearing slated for the day that Samberg \u2014 who was a restricted free agent \u2014 and the Jets put pen to paper, the 26-year-old defenceman is still pleased with how things played out.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou always want to have longer term, everyone wants that,\u201d the 2017 second-round pick said. \u201cBut sometimes it just doesn\u2019t work out that way, both sides just can\u2019t agree. With the three years, I still have some time [to keep proving myself]. I\u2019m excited to do it in Winnipeg for three more years and hopefully [more after that.]\u201d<\/p>\n

Samberg took on a bigger role with the Jets this past year, partnering with Pionk on the team\u2019s second pair. For the first two full years of his career, the six-foot-four bruiser never exceeded 16 minutes per night. This past season, that number grew to 21:08.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like each year that goes by, I become more and more confident,\u201d he said. \u201cThis last year, with moving up to that second pair, logging more minutes, playing against tougher competition, I was happy with how I handled it and I\u2019m excited for next year. I want to continue to grow on that second pair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samberg called it \u201cawesome\u201d playing beside Pionk and he\u2019s also excited about another guy who recently inked a deal with the Jets, Winnipeg native Jonathan Toews.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of those guys I grew up watching,\u201d Samberg said. \u201cIt\u2019s very cool and I\u2019m excited to meet him. This is a good thing for him, and I think he\u2019s excited to get back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toews, of course, is joining a team that won the Presidents\u2019 Trophy in 2024-25 with a league-best 116 points. Samberg said he can\u2019t wait for training camp, where Winnipeg will begin the process of trying to build on a year that saw the club defeat the St. Louis Blues in the first round of the playoffs before falling to the Dallas Stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have a really good group and a really good chance at making something special,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we proved that last year during the regular season, and getting past that first round was a huge stepping stone for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the Jets\u2019 most important players, Kyle Connor<\/a>, is also eligible to negotiate a new deal with the team as he enters the final year of his current contract. If Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff can knock that one out, he\u2019ll probably feel pretty good \u2014 on balance \u2014 about how the off-season has gone, even with the departure of Nikolaj Ehlers as a free agent. While Samberg and the Jets couldn\u2019t quite make it work on a long-term deal the way Vilardi and Pionk did, it\u2019s clear Samberg is happy with the situation, a feeling he believes extends around the dressing room.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows guys want to stay here,\u201d he said of the commitments his teammates have made. \u201cWith that group we had last year, we\u2019re very close, very tight-knit. We had a fun year, it\u2019s always fun when you\u2019re winning. Guys who sign those longer-term deals, they want to be around here, they want to be around this group and this organization. We\u2019re treated very well and everyone loves it up there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dylan Samberg would have liked a longer contract with the Winnipeg Jets, but he\u2019s still got a good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-37736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}