In Arctic Ice Hockey’s final article about the Winnipeg Jets’ prospects under the age of 25, we explore the final four young men on our list to determine the likelihood they ever suit up for the NHL franchise that drafted them. While there are no 1st round selections in the group, the True North club did grab one of the players in each of the next four rounds.
Lets go through them in draft order then, from highest to lowest….
ALFONS FREIJ – 2nd round (37th overall), 19 yrs old, 6’1″ 196 lbs, LD/RD
I picked a good day to do my write up of Alfons Freij, since the young Swede just happened to ink his first professional contract with the team that drafted him 37th overall at the last Entry Draft. Even though he signed his three year ELC deal for $975,000 per season, the defenseman will be making the leap to Sweden’s highest league (SHL) with Timra IK in 2025-26.
The Solvesborg native really excelled in his draft season, putting up a combined 84 points in 89 Swedish U20 & international games (.944 pts/gm), making him an early 2nd round option for Winnipeg when their pick rolled around. This past campaign saw the 6’1″ defenseman attempt the next step in his development by playing in Sweden’s second-best league. His point production sustained the expected hit at that level and dropped to .368 points per game, yet the coaches over there must have been happy with what they saw since they have promoted him to the top tier for the upcoming season.
With equally good speed & agility, the 19 yr old is able to get involved offensively, primarily as a playmaker even though he has an above-average shot & a NHL-ready 1 timer. Freij was always a wonderful skater with strong offensive instincts…and now he’s beginning to round out his defensive game. The young Swede will get to continue to work on that in the SHL, as well as being a likely selection for his country’s roster for this year’s World Junior Championships.
While DobberProspects’ doesn’t have a PNHLe chart for Freij yet to see where they would project his potential ceiling might be, the website does offer another way to try to determine whether a prospect might make the NHL. This is called their NHL Certainty statistic, which uses a scale of 1 to 10 to give us an idea how likely it will be that they end up playing in the big league at some point. According to Dobber’s a prospect with a rating of 9 or higher should probably be suited up in the NHL already, but they also state that this stat isn’t saying anything about how good that player will be at that level (could be elite or a bottom sixer). Since the prospect’s rating changes over time, a player at the age of 18 will almost always have a lower rating than they will the following year if they continue to develop and perform well against higher levels of competition.
So with that in mind, the 19 yr old Swede’s current NHL Certainty rating is 8.0, which seems like a good sign that Alfons will eventually make the Winnipeg Jets roster in the future. For reference, the 20 yr old Elias Salomonsson’s current rating is 8.5 after he put up an impressive rookie season with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose. Not much separating the two European defensemen and Dobber’s scouting report does suggest that Freij’s ceiling might be as a “number three puck moving defenseman“.
Overall, the 2nd rounder’s development seems to be going well and after next season’s stats are on the books, we will likely get a chance to see what his PNHLe rating is. Based on all the things I have read, it sounds like the Jets could have a pair of up & coming top 4 defenders in Freij & Salomonsson. Us fans should also expect to see the young man make the jump to the Manitoba Moose the following season, which will at least give me the chance to watch Freij play regularly.
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ZACHARY NEHRING – 3rd round (82nd overall), 20 yrs old, 6’3″ 185 lbs, RW
When Zachary Nehring was 16 & 17 years old, the right winger showed some offensive prowess at various levels of the United States High School league (scoring over 1.5 pts/gm). The big American’s performance caught the eye of Winnipeg’s scouting department and the club ended up selecting him in the 3rd round of the 2023 Entry Draft. In his post-draft season, the North Dakotan sustained a concussion and that led to missed time and not much offense when he was playing in the USHL (.318 pts/gm), putting his NHL potential in question.
Looking to not only rebound from an off year, Nehring was also making the jump to the NCAA this past season when he suited up with Western Michigan University. Here is how he did….
The Jets’ development staff must have been elated to see that the Minot-born forward took advantage of a healthy campaign by winning 3 Rookie of the Week honours, 1 Rookie of the Month award, led the WMU freshmen skaters in both goals & assists……and was part of a playoff run that saw the Broncos lift the National Championship trophy. Plus he grew 2 inches and added a bit more weight according the the university’s website (6’5″ 190 lbs). Not a bad year….and the scouts & numbers seem to agree in DobberProspect’s PHNLe rating below. The scouts note that Nehring isn’t afraid to crash the net, but likely is more of a long-term project so he won’t be knocking on the NHL’s door in the next couple of seasons. However, the future roster of the Winnipeg Jets could always use that kind of size in the middle six, so here is hoping Zachary continues progressing along his current path.
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GARRETT BROWN – 4th round (99th overall), 21 yrs old, 6’3″ 190 lbs, RD
The Winnipeg Jets took a shot at Garrett Brown in the 4th round of the 2022 Entry Draft after he established himself as a defensive defenseman at the USHL level. The big American joined the Denver Pioneers of the NCAA the following season, but injuries kept him out for long stretches of the club’s Championship season (4 pts in 8 gms). Fortunately the right hander had better health this year, getting in 42 games but only putting up 8 points (.190 pts/gm) as the Pioneers made the NCAA Finals in back-to-back campaigns.
The 21 year old Buffalo native’s development curve is not going great at this point and I am not sure if he will be able to overcome consistency & skating concerns to become an NHL regular. Another player without a PNHLe chart, so I will once again provide DobberProspects’ NHL Certainty rating for Garrett….3.5. Brown will be returning for another season with Denver and the Jets will continue to monitor his play since they will retain his rights until August of 2027.
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DMITRI RASHEVSKY – 5th round (146th overall), 6’1″ 185 lbs, RW
Since the NHL-KHL have no current agreement regarding players’ rights, the Winnipeg Jets will retain Dmitri Rashevsky’s NHL rights indefinitely….and that might be needed since the Russian winger recently accepted a 3 year offer sheet from another KHL franchise, forcing his Moscow Dynamo club to either match or lose his services. Regardless of how that plays out, it means the forward isn’t coming to North America anytime soon.
Rashevsky has been a near 20 goal per season scorer in Russia’s top league for four campaigns now, so it would have been interesting if he had decided to take his shot with the Jets. The scouts all agree that he plays a high energy game and is defensively responsible, so he could have been an interesting addition to Nino Niederreiter & Adam Lowry on Winnipeg’s checking line. The ability to contribute on both the powerplay & penalty kill could have been useful too. Oh well, he made his choice….so lets take a peek at DobberProspects’ PNHLe chart to see what us fans are potentially missing.
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When I go back over all the Prospect articles to sum up what the Winnipeg Jets currently have in their prospect pool, here is how I see the young players’ potential NHL ceilings:
- 2nd Line Forwards: Walton, Yager, He, & Lambert
- Middle Six Forwards: Chibrikov, Barlow & Nehring
- Bottom Six Forwards: Julien & Ford
- 2nd Pairing Defensemen: Salomonsson & Freij
- Goaltenders: DiVincentiis (starter) & Milic (back up)
The Athletic recently ranked the True North prospects as the 15th best in the NHL, right in the middle of the pack. Based on the above, that would seem to be apt. Winnipeg has a decent number of future NHLers in the organization, but is lacking that really high end talent that other higher ranked pools have (i.e. elite or 1st liners).
Part of that can be blamed on the Jets’ scouts, but they have been hindered by lack of attempts in the past couple of drafts. Over the last two, Winnipeg has only had 50% of their selections in the first 4 rounds and that trend will continue as our club doesn’t have their 2nd or 4th round picks for the next 3 drafts. That is largely thanks to GM Kevin Cheveldayoff paying way too much at the past trade deadline for players who were never really going to move the needle in a good way…..but that is the way it goes sometimes. Heck, there are those in the media still cursing Chevy for not spending the remaining $6M in cap space to improve his team, so I guess they would have been fine with the Jets spending even more assets.
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That little discussion about Winnipeg’s lack of upcoming draft picks and a recent comment by AIH member SaskatoonJet took me on a little journey.
Initially my interest was only piqued enough to look up the two franchise playing in the Stanley Cup Finals and I discovered that both Florida & Edmonton only contained 26% homegrown talent on this season’s rosters. That is only 6 players each….and the Oilers only drafted one of those outside of the top 10 overall!! For your information, when I use the term “homegrown“, I am including any player who is drafted by or signed as an undrafted free agent by the franchise that they also started their NHL careers with. Even though many teams can’t fit the maximum of 23 players under the cap, that is the figure I used for the percentages above and to discover that the Winnipeg Jets were 56.5% homegrown (13 of 23) at the end of this past season.
- Forwards: Scheifele, Connor, Ehlers, Perfetti, Lowry, Appleton, Tanev, & Gustafsson (8)
- Defense: Morrissey, Samberg, & Stanley (3) **Heinola didn’t play enough
- Goalie: Hellebuyck & Comrie (2)
After I allowed that information to percolate in my brain for a full day, I couldn’t help myself from looking at the entire league to see if there are any patterns that might emerge. Is it impossible to do well in the playoffs with a “draft & develop” strategy? Are the NHL’s elite clubs filled with players they’ve brought in via trades or free agency?
The table below is ordered based on how each NHL team did in the regular season & playoffs, with the 16 post-season clubs highlighted in yellow. In other words, the teams that did the best this year are at the top and the ones you have to scroll down to find had their difficulties in 2024-25. When it comes to the percentages, I ended up highlighting ratings above 50% in light blue, ones in the 40’s in green, and the clubs with less than 30% in red. Take some time to look at the information to see if anything pops for you…..and once you are done making your discoveries, I will tell you what I found interesting below.
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Starting off with the playoff teams, the first thing that jumped out to me was that Winnipeg was the only franchise to qualify that had more than 50% homegrown talent on their rosters. Other than that, no immediate pattern that I could see since there were 5 clubs in the 40’s, 6 franchises in the 30’s, and 4 teams in the 20’s or under.
Yet when you think of the squads that were considered Cup favourites at the start of the year, you see that Florida (26%), Edmonton (26%), Vegas (17.4%), & Colorado (21.7%) topped most of them. Obviously those franchises’ ability to draw talent to their cities has helped them cross that line between a great team and an elite one. It seems that being in a low tax/warm weather environment (Panthers/Knights) or having elite superstars that others want to play with (Oilers/Avalanche) can have its benefits. Now you might be saying what about the 3 clubs that were in the “red” and still missed the playoffs? Well those can easily be explained…..Pittsburgh is an aging franchise in its pre-rebuild death throes after years of mortgaging the future, Seattle is a recent expansion franchise without the necessary draft history to have enough homegrown talent be NHL ready at this point, and Utah has a low percentage mainly due to the poor Coyotes’ drafting history.
The 30’s range also has a few of the NHL’s top teams, with perennial playoff clubs like Toronto (39.1%), Tampa Bay (39.1%), & Carolina (39.1%) having just over a third of their rosters filled with drafted & developed players. Then in contrast, Winnipeg (56.5%), Dallas (47.8%), & Los Angeles (43.5%) were the three playoff clubs that have higher percentages yet have consistently qualified for the post-season in recent years. It is a bit interesting that the Stars haven’t relied on bringing in as much talent, despite having the advantages that go along with nice weather & no state income tax.
At least they are fortunate enough to have the option….not like the clubs that are often on players’ no trade lists whether it is because of cold weather, high taxes/cost of living, bad team, no night life, or shoddy internet:
- Columbus Blue Jackets – 60.9%
- Winnipeg Jets – 56.5%
- New York Islanders – 56.5%
- Ottawa Senators – 43.5%
- Buffalo Sabres – 43.5%
- Calgary Flames – 43.5%
Now I am not saying that having a lot of sunshine or the ability to take home more of your paycheck guarantees a franchise will be able to build a Cup winning roster….but it certainly helps. The NHL rightly pointed out that no one was scrambling to go to Florida when both the Panthers & Lightning sucked many years ago….but that only means they lose any advantage the tax situation gives them if they are terrible. In fact, even then if they were competing against another bad team for a free agent player, then the tax thing would still be helpful in getting people to move to your city. So I will have to disagree with the league & NHLPA’s conclusion that this issue is a non-factor.
The fact remains, no other General Manager has a tougher job to do than whomever sits at the helm of the Winnipeg Jets. The leader in no trade list appearances and a terrible track record of drawing free agents to the province of Manitoba, so many potential pathways for the True North club have been clogged with obstacles. On the plus side, it seems that once a player agrees to give Winnipeg a shot, they often like it enough to stick around for longer. So whether the draft & develop strategy can ever create a Stanley Cup winner will eventually be answered…because that is really the only path the Jets have to try & get there.
As always, any thoughts on the prospects or homegrown talent chart is welcome. Besides starting discussions, comments also let me know that people are still dropping by to check in every now & then. The next thing on the hockey calendar is the upcoming Entry Draft in late June, which will then quickly lead to the start of Free Agency on July 1st. I am hoping to do an article to look at some of the potential players Winnipeg might draft with the 28th overall selection, as well as dig through the bargain bin of unrestricted free agents to see if any could be useful to the Jets.
Hope the fires in Manitoba & Saskatchewan haven’t impacted you too much. Enjoy the rest of the summer.
