The Winnipeg Jets finished first in the NHL last season, won a playoff round for the first time since 2021, and then named the Stanley Cup as their goal. Now they\u2019ve missed the playoffs altogether, wasting spectacular offence from Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, and Josh Morrissey \u2014 plus one more year of franchise goaltender Connor Hellebuyck\u2019s prime.<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Kings\u2019 win 5-3 in Seattle officially ended Winnipeg\u2019s playoff push before the Jets\u2019 6-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights had the chance. Winnipeg\u2019s playoff miss is a dramatic failure for an aging team focused on winning in the short term.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s where Winnipeg went wrong:<\/p>\n
Management failed its 2025 roster review<\/p>\n
Winnipeg\u2019s failed 2025-26 season began at last season\u2019s failed trade deadline.<\/a> The Jets tried but failed to acquire a second-line centre, but Brock Nelson preferred Colorado to Winnipeg. The Avalanche sent New York an impressive package including Calum Ritchie and a first-round pick, and the Jets pivoted to grit.<\/p>\n Winnipeg spent a second- and a fourth-round pick on Luke Schenn (and another second-round pick on Brandon Tanev), which cost last year\u2019s playoff team a little and this year\u2019s Jets a lot. Tanev didn\u2019t score any points in Winnipeg\u2019s 13 playoff games, while the Jets were outscored 11-3 when Schenn was playing at five-on-five. Winnipeg opted to keep Schenn playing a consistent role on its third pair this season, where he continued to bleed goals against. The Presidents\u2019 Trophy-winning Jets had won their minutes, even with their third pair playing, but this year\u2019s team was outscored 29-16 while Schenn was on the ice.<\/p>\n There may be some intangible value to playing a 36-year-old veteran with two Stanley Cups on his resume, but the Jets cost themselves an inordinate number of breakout passes<\/a>, helping kill transition offence before it started, to chase that value. Schenn wasn\u2019t the only example of that \u2014 and Elias Salomonsson struggled early, by his own admission \u2014 but it soon became clear Winnipeg had better options it declined to see.<\/p>\n Winnipeg gets beaten by no-movement clauses in the trade market. It\u2019s not a premier UFA destination. The Jets can\u2019t afford to miss the development of their own top prospects.<\/p>\n Offseason bets were too old and slow for too long to help<\/p>\n Winnipeg opened the 2025-26 season as the oldest<\/a> and slowest<\/a> team in the NHL \u2014 and yes, we cited this as cause for concern<\/a>.<\/p>\n Winnipeg lost speedsters Nikolaj Ehlers, Mason Appleton and Rasmus Kupari last offseason, replacing them with Jonathan Toews, Gustav Nyquist, Tanner Pearson and Cole Koepke.\u00a0Koepke was a success on the Jets\u2019 fourth line, despite a lack of finishing, because he has the work ethic and speed to make himself a pain to play against. The Jets\u2019 other additions were underwhelming.<\/p>\n Toews\u2019 hockey IQ helped him find ways to contribute despite a lack of top-end wheels at this stage in his career. It wasn\u2019t nearly enough to warrant his second-line usage for the first half of the season. Nyquist, 36, has scored one goal all season. Pearson, 33, put up 14 points in 55 games. The Jets didn\u2019t have a route to signing Ehlers \u2014 years of secondary usage made his exit more inevitable than shocking \u2014 but his career-high, 70-point performance in Carolina equals the 70 Winnipeg has received from Toews, Nyquist, Pearson and Koepke combined.<\/p>\n Scott Arniel\u2019s systems play requires forechecking tenacity and backtracking speed. The disconnect between roster quality and Winnipeg\u2019s route to success was costly.<\/p>\n A half-season lack of secondary scoring hurt the top line, too<\/p>\n Winnipeg flirted with a catastrophe bigger than missing the playoffs for much of the season. On Jan. 8, the team was in last place.<\/p>\n As of that date, Connor, Scheifele, and Gabriel Vilardi had scored 58 goals between them. The other 23 skaters who had dressed for Winnipeg to that point in the season had scored 62 goals combined. The embarrassing secondary scoring stat line had a multitude of causes: Ehlers\u2019 departure, Toews\u2019 slow start, Cole Perfetti\u2019s high ankle sprain, Adam Lowry\u2019s offseason hip surgery, and Arniel\u2019s unwillingness to see if Connor and Scheifele could each drive their own line.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t play half a season with three forwards and one defenceman (Josh Morrissey) producing and expect to survive in the NHL. The Jets didn\u2019t have a lot of options but hurt themselves by only trying one of them: Connor and Scheifele, in various combination, backed by Morrissey.<\/p>\n The numbers aren\u2019t quite as lopsided from Jan. 9 through Winnipeg\u2019s push up the standings to today, not because Winnipeg found better ideas but because Perfetti and Toews came to life: Perfetti\u2019s nine goals and 23 points in 38 games since that date put him on a 50-point-per-82-game pace, while Toews\u2019 pace improved to 35 points per 82 games during this time period.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not nearly enough \u2014 and it wore on Connor and Scheifele, too. The best version of those two players win their minutes against any and all competition. The version that functions as the only consistent scorers for half the season started to chase offence and give up goals that erased some of the ones they scored. One might blame coaching for the lack of apparent consequences, but there\u2019s also an angle that asks, \u2018What was Arniel supposed to do?\u2019 and comes up empty \u2014 aside from splitting Connor and Scheifele altogether. After a certain point, it gets hard to blame the top scorers for defending poorly when they\u2019re driving the offence themselves and the coach keeps giving them minutes.<\/p>\n Winnipeg got a better version of its top line last season when its second and third lines drove results, too. This one got outscored unless Morrissey was also on the ice with them.<\/p>\n The power play cost the Jets 24 goals<\/p>\n The Jets\u2019 power play regressed from No. 1 in the NHL, threatening to establish a new record for efficiency for much of last season, to 24th best this year. The drop-off has cost Winnipeg approximately 24 goals and counting through 80 games.<\/p>\n In a league in which every three goals tends to correspond to roughly 1 standings point, that drop-off alone torched approximately eight points \u2014 more than enough to explain the playoffs miss. Had the Jets merely been average \u2014 slightly over 20 percent \u2014 they\u2019d have scored another five goals and won at least one extra game.<\/p>\n Why so bad, then?<\/p>\n \u2022 They\u2019ve spent the least time in the league in the offensive zone. The top unit responded to Ehlers\u2019 departure by using Toews and Perfetti in his spot, in roughly equal measure. Neither player produced at even half of Ehlers\u2019 power-play scoring rate of 7.6 points per 60 minutes, while all of Connor, Scheifele, Vilardi and Morrissey also saw their point rates decline.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t dominate the league on the power play if you can\u2019t spend time set up and in formation. Ehlers\u2019 departure hurt in terms of puck recoveries, and may have hurt zone entries, too; he was not the Jets\u2019 puck carrier or even a frequent first pass recipient at the offensive line, but his presence would have earned respect from opposing defenders. It\u2019s not enough to explain Davis Payne\u2019s move from magician to mid as the Jets\u2019 power-play coach.<\/p>\n Hellebuyck\u2019s knee scope led to two months of awful goaltending<\/p>\n Connor Hellebuyck missed just under a month of action in late November and early December, shutting himself down to get a procedure done on his knee. Winnipeg went 3-8-1 without him, tying Vancouver for the worst record in the NHL during his absence. The .870 save percentage the Jets got during this time period from Eric Comrie (11 games) and Thomas Milic (three games) was the second-worst in the NHL.<\/p>\n Hellebuyck struggled upon his return, too, posting a 5-10-7 record with Winnipeg heading into the Olympic break. He\u2019ll finish the season with a sub-.900 save percentage and without Vezina Trophy consideration. The only month he finished with a save percentage above .900 was October, when the Jets raced out to a 9-3-0 start. He turns 33 years old this May; he may bounce back, but it may also be time to reconsider 60-game seasons as Hellebuyck\u2019s norm.<\/p>\n The Jets fell short of a .500 points percentage by five points during that stretch \u2014 almost enough to close the gap on Los Angeles now.<\/p>\n Utter lack of resilience in close games<\/p>\n Winnipeg gave seven points away in games it led comfortably. Readers should be familiar with the Jets\u2019 second-worst win percentage in games they\u2019ve led after two periods. We\u2019ve highlighted this before, but these are the games that will hurt the most:<\/p>\n \u2022 OTL to Minnesota in December: The Jets led 2-1 with 30 seconds left in the third period, but Dylan DeMelo took a cross-checking penalty and the Wild made Winnipeg pay.<\/p>\n \u2022 Loss to Toronto after leading 4-1 partway through the second period: The Jets made it to the second intermission with a 4-3 lead, but the Maple Leafs completed their 6-5 comeback win in the third.<\/p>\n \u2022 OTL to Vegas after leading 3-2 with 5:04 left in the third period: It looked like Connor\u2019s go-ahead goal would be the difference, but 59 seconds later, the game was tied and the Golden Knights went on to win in overtime.<\/p>\n \u2022 Loss to Edmonton after leading 3-1 after the first and 3-2 after the second period: This was the last of 11 straight losses between Dec. 15 and Jan. 8, and another in which Winnipeg led but couldn\u2019t close.<\/p>\n \u2022 OTL to Toronto after going up 3-1 early in the third period on Nino Niederreiter\u2019s goal: Once again, the Maple Leafs stormed back, and this time it took until overtime for Toronto to win.<\/p>\n Some of these lost points overlap with Winnipeg\u2019s power-play and goaltending woes, but the unique factor is that the Jets had a win within their reach. The defending in some of these games was atrocious, with top Jets skaters losing track of opposing stars like Connor McDavid with costly regularity. A 7-12 record in overtime and shootouts also hurt.<\/p>\n Coaching staff tried too little before running out of ideas<\/p>\n Connor and Scheifele get referenced a lot \u2014 not because they\u2019re drains on Jets productivity, but because they\u2019re people who could be part of solutions Winnipeg did not even try to look for. Heading into Monday\u2019s games, Connor and Scheifele played more minutes together at five-on-five than any other two players in the NHL. That bears repeating: they shared more minutes together than any other two forwards you can think of and every single defence pairing, too.<\/p>\n Arniel once called it a \u201cbusiness partnership.\u201d I don\u2019t know what that means, but going a full season of losing and sometimes last-place hockey without once trying to find out if Connor and Scheifele can drive their own lines \u2014 on a team whose secondary scoring was nonexistent \u2014 probably cost Winnipeg multiple millions of dollars this spring. The Jets will miss the playoffs. Their two best forwards will score nearly 200 points between them.<\/p>\n What if Connor and Scheifele are so good that Connor-Vilardi-X and Perfetti-Scheifele-X would score more goals than Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi and a second-line centred by 21-point player Adam Lowry?<\/p>\n The Jets may never know.<\/p>\n
\u2022 They\u2019ve struggled on faceoffs and zone entries relative to the league.
\u2022 They\u2019re winning fewer races to the end boards to recover pucks after missed shots.<\/p>\n