The True North organization is beginning the preparations for their 15th season running the Winnipeg Jets and you would think coming off their most successful regular season campaign…it would have to be considered an important one.
General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff certainly has a lot of decisions to make, with 9 restricted free agents (RFA) and 7 unrestricted free agents (UFA) to consider for new contracts. Although those aren’t all NHL level decisions, since technically the Jets only need to fill another 5 forward spots to have enough skaters to fill out their roster, plus a couple press boxers in case of emergency. That certainly isn’t how it will play out though, because Winnipeg currently has too many defensemen signed (7) and still need to re-up Dylan Samberg. That could suggest that Chevy finds a trading partner for at least one of those defenders before the puck drops on a new season.
The National Hockey League’s salary cap will see huge leaps in the upcoming three seasons after being pretty much static for the last four, so most franchises should have a good amount of money to work with. The 2025-26 campaign will net NHL GMs an extra $7.5M this year to try and fill the holes in their lineups, putting the ceiling at $95,500,000. And that is just the start of things, with $8.5M & $9.5M jumps planned for the next two campaigns.
When it comes to our Winnipeg hockey club, the 17 NHL players they currently have signed and a $1,616,667 buy out penalty for Nate Schmidt’s last Jet contract means the organization has already spent $69,036,190 of the salary cap. So that gives Chevy $26,463,810 to fool around with over the summer months, unless he wants to free up more by moving one of the signed players.
Below, you will find two charts outlining the status of all the players signed with either the Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose, broken down between the forwards & defense/goaltenders. This should give you a good idea on what Cheveldayoff has on his plate over the next few months.
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You can probably assume that all the players outlined in light blue will get new contracts to continue their development with the organization, but of course the deals for Dylan Samberg & Gabriel Vilardi’s new contracts are of the utmost importance. There is no more time to push a long-term big money deal down the road for the big Minnesotan defenseman, so it is now or never. Winnipeg can do a one year deal with Vilardi if the cap situation demands it, but it might be best to get the winger locked up before he has an even better season to improve his bargaining stance.
There is no doubt that some of the UFAs (red) won’t be wearing a Jets’ uniform next season, though most of us would be happy if it is just Nikolaj Ehlers returning. The more I look at Brandon Tanev’s advanced statistics over the past 3 seasons, the more I want Chevy to let him walk this summer, even though he did hit the 10 goal mark this season between Seattle & Winnipeg. And I know how most of us feel about Mason Appleton.
When it comes to the players highlighted in purple, typically one or two of them end up earning NHL contracts every off-season. If I had to guess, the most likely player could be forward Ben King (23 yr old, 6’3″, 205 lbs, C/RW, 12 goals & 26 pts).
Over the next few weeks, I should have more articles diving into this situation, including updates on how the Winnipeg Jets’ prospects did last year and when they may be expected to make their NHL debuts. Until then, this will give us an idea of the status quo and possibly spark some discussion in the Comment section?
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Garret Hohl of The Five Hohl put out an article today outlining just how good Nikolaj Ehlers has been during his time with the Winnipeg Jets organization.
https://thefivehohl.substack.com/p/the-case-for-and-against-the-winnipeg
It certainly illustrates just how well Fly has performed in limited ice-time, statistically among the NHL’s best, and bangs the drum saying that our hockey club should have played him more often. While I agree that it is important to put Ehlers in a place to be impactful, I wish Hohl would have addressed the speedy Dane’s injury history more. I would have loved to see if statistics support my thought that increasing Nikolaj’s playing time significantly would also run the risk of increasing the numbers of games lost each season (which already averages 16 games a year with approximately 15 mins per game, how much higher would that be if Fly was getting 20 mins per game?).
Some other things I found interesting were the charts outlining how a NHL player progresses in the WAR statistical category over their careers. Since it applies to whether you think GM Kevin Cheveldayoff should offer Ehlers a long-term deal or not….let’s take a look at what it indicates.
First thing that popped out to me is that NHL players seem to peak very early, with their best performances in the 23 to 25 year range. While the slow decline starts after that, it seems that you can typically rely on 6 or 7 relatively good seasons to follow. After the age of 32, hockey players can have big drops in their effectiveness, with the biggest drops occurring after they turn 34 & 37.
But of course, not everyone follow the same pattern so Hohl used a sG chart to compare the careers of Nikolaj Ehlers & Blake Wheeler. HockeyViz.com’s sG model is a predictive-value-focused model. In other words, it tries to estimate how much value a player would contribute if every NHL player had the same usage.
When reviewing the chart below, we see that Fly started his NHL career way earlier because Wheels opted to wait to reach UFA status before signing his entry level professional deal. Ehlers has reached higher peaks than Wheeler at younger ages, but it remains to be seen if he can top the Jets’ former captain’s best season at the age of 30.
Besides the injury concern about signing the speedy Dane to a long-term contract, lets try to use Wheeler’s career to see when you might expect to see a drop off in Ehlers’ game. Of course, the two players could hardly be more different in their playing styles, but using the path of Blake’s career you should be able to count on Nikolaj having at least 5 good NHL seasons left in him.
Interesting stuff and a tough decision for Chevy & Ehlers to make this summer…….is the grass greener & more enjoyable elsewhere for Fly? Is paying an aging oft-injured star (if you followed the link, one formula is predicting a $9.8M/yr deal over 8 yrs) forward the right move for the organization – both short & long term?
Lets hear your thoughts on who the Winnipeg Jets should do their best to keep and who they should either let walk or find a trading partner for? Enjoy the summer everyone.
