The Winnipeg Jets started the second half of their season with a 5-2 win against Nashville on Tuesday, which means it’s time to grade their midterms.
Winnipeg’s dominant power play has given this season an enormous boost, helping multiple forwards score at rates that will set new career highs if they keep it up. But who’s leading the way?
Let’s break it all down.
(These grades are based on a combination of analytics, eye-test and good old-fashioned results. I won’t penalize a player for expected regression; if he’s shooting the lights out now, he gets credit for the goals, not dinged for the unsustainable shooting percentage. And yes, there will be a lot of good marks — the Jets are second in the NHL.)
Kyle Connor has been the class of Winnipeg’s forward group this season. He leads all Jets in points, points per minute, even-strength points and power-play points. He’s on pace to cross the 100-point plateau for the first time in his career and to score over 40 goals for the second time. He’s also spectacular to watch, routinely making offensive plays that other star players can’t make, and the envy of his teammates: Multiple teammates told me earlier this season that, if they could, they would steal Connor’s explosive first few strides, or his speed out of a cutback, or his finishing ability.
The stunning thing is Connor has made all of these additions to what was already a brilliant offensive resume while improving his defensive game. While opposing teams continue to run their elite players against Winnipeg’s top line — as they’ve done in the past to great success — Connor has created more quality chances than he’s given up.
His defensive impact can be found on highlight reels:
And in charts, like this one from HockeyViz:
Mark Scheifele has as many goals as Connor; the Jets are one of only two teams with multiple players on pace to score 40. He has accomplished this while playing through an upper-body injury for a portion of his season, finding a way to shoot a career-best 25 percent through 42 games. He’s also winning the expected goals battle despite Winnipeg being outshot while he’s on the ice. He’s adapted his game to help the Jets’ league-leading power play score goals in a variety of new ways. Not every play has to reset back to Scheifele anymore — creating more options and more goals — and the new looks have led to Scheifele scoring more often, not less.
Admittedly, some of Scheifele’s most entertaining goals have required the stars to align:
But there’s more to his success, even if some regression is expected. Scheifele excels at creating scoring chances from the middle of the ice, using his patience, puck protection and vision to make passes into dangerous areas. His sense of timing is excellent; he moves the puck to his linemates, especially Connor when he has time and space to shoot, and consistently lands among the NHL’s shot assist leaders. Like Connor, Scheifele has found himself on the ice for fewer shots against from prime real estate than in recent seasons. Winnipeg’s shooters, Scheifele included, have taken care of the rest, and the team has reaped the rewards.
What do you get when a hockey player has Scheifele’s size and Connor’s quick hands?
Gabriel Vilardi has scored or set up a disproportionate number of Winnipeg’s most exciting goals this season. His power-play goal against Nashville on Tuesday was his 10th — a new career high — and his 37th point, surpassing his total from last season in five fewer games. He also pulled off this mid-air stickhandle against New York, turning it into a give-and-go with Nikolaj Ehlers:
Vilardi’s lack of footspeed clearly hasn’t kept him from producing points at an elite rate — particularly on the power play. (It should be noted that his five-on-five scoring rate is merely above average, trailing Connor, Ehlers and Scheifele by a lot and Adam Lowry by a little.) He’s on pace to set new career highs in goals, assists and points and he’s doing so while playing with a defensive conscience that’s helped contribute to Connor and Scheifele’s two-way improvements.
Nikolaj Ehlers: A
Ehlers is the fourth of four game-breakers on this list and deserves his spot in Winnipeg’s top tier, all of whom are set to establish new career highs in points. He’s once again an elite five-on-five scorer despite chemistry issues on his line with Vladislav Namestnikov and Cole Perfetti. He’s first among all Jets in power-play points per minute — which should not be a surprise but still comes as a shock. He’s fit in brilliantly on the top unit, helping it pick opponents apart with quick decisions, an attacking mentality and a wealth of set plays via Davis Payne.
The true surprise? Ehlers’ power-play impact hasn’t been about zone entries — Connor and Scheifele handle most of those — but about quick decisions with the puck and a commitment to puck recoveries off rebounds and missed shots. An overlooked part of the Jets’ success is how fast they recover pucks and get right back on the attack after they miss; Ehlers isn’t known for his wall battles but has been effective. He also established a new career high in power-play points with an assist on Vilardi’s goal on Tuesday.
Nino Niederreiter is a crease-crashing, battle-winning winger. He scores half a point per game each season, generating offence inches from the opponents’ goal while backtracking all the way to his goal line to defend. Some of his offence is sporadic, coming in bursts, and he ranks last among Jets forwards in power-play points per minute, but those are nitpicks, not complaints. Overall, he’s managing a five-on-five scoring rate (1.57 points per 60 minutes) that would fit in on most NHL teams’ second lines and puts him a hair below Vilardi for fifth-best on the team.
Adam Lowry: B+
If Vilardi is scoring the fifth-most points per minute and Connor, Ehlers and Scheifele have the top three spots locked up, who could be No. 4?
Lowry has cooled off of late but has scored like a second-line player at even strength and is on pace for what would be a career high of 47 points as a result. He’s also been a cornerstone of Winnipeg’s cultural change between its 2022 playoffs miss and today, while occasionally displaying PK heroics that make Winnipeg’s 19th-ranked PK unit look better than it’s been.
Watch Adam Lowry on this penalty kill. At the end of a penalty killing shift that lasted *2:02*, at the end of a 5-on-3, he puts his head down and outmuscles Roman Josi to get the puck down the ice.
Incredible effort from the #NHLJets captain. pic.twitter.com/JL8BB55Q6K
— Connor Hrabchak (@ConnorHrabchak1) January 8, 2025
Lowry’s line with Niederreiter and Mason Appleton has won its minutes 17-7 this season. Combine that with the Namestnikov-Ehlers-Perfetti line winning its minutes 14-6 and the Jets’ middle six has been an outstanding source of strength over Winnipeg’s first 42 games.
Cole Perfetti: B
Perfetti has yet to join Winnipeg’s game-breaking group of elite scorers, but he’s having a solid if up-and-down season in a support role. He’s on pace for 45 points in 82 games, which puts him on track with Bryan Little’s numbers in 2017-18 and 2018-19. Of course, the Jets went shopping for upgrades to Little in those seasons when they thought they were on the verge of a Stanley Cup run. I think the Jets’ second line needs a boost now that Perfetti and Namestnikov are on cold streaks, even as Perfetti’s follows big games against tough opponents in Vegas, Tampa Bay and Minnesota. In the short term, Perfetti’s grade reflects the distance between Winnipeg’s offensive stars and supporting cast. In the long run, he needs a more productive second half than he had last season to maintain this grade by season’s end.
This power-play finish is a reminder of Perfetti’s puck skill:
COLE PERFETTI THAT’S JUST FILTHY#NHL pic.twitter.com/qxW6TuUpUA
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 19, 2024
Mason Appleton: B
Appleton is the least-often heralded member of Winnipeg’s shutdown line. This is a fair outcome given who he plays with, but Appleton has gone to the net hard enough and finished plays often enough to march in lockstep with Niederreiter, close behind Vilardi for fifth on the team. He’s week to week with a lower-body injury, perhaps putting a strain on his ability to consolidate what had been a quality start.
Vladislav Namestnikov: C+
Namestnikov has gone ice cold since December, adding a roller-coaster element to a season that started strong. Sure, it took three or four games for him and his linemates to get going, but all three were productive from Winnipeg’s 8-3 October win in San Jose through most of its difficult November. Namestnikov had multipoint games against the Sharks, Lightning and Stars, providing the tenacious, Energizer Bunny style of two-way play that made him a smart acquisition for the Jets two seasons ago. But he’s scored just five points in 18 games since Dec. 1 — not good enough for a second-line centre on a contending team. Whether it’s fading chemistry, banged-up bodies or otherwise, the second line has been less than the sum of its parts for most of the last month.
Alex Iafallo is a player the Jets market would brag about if he carried a cap hit smaller than $4 million. He’s an excellent forechecker, taking smart angles and using a quick stick to knock pucks down. His defensive impact is positive from an analytical point of view and he scores often enough on Winnipeg’s second power play to be worthy of his spot on that unit. He doesn’t create enough offence on his own to help the Jets make the most out of his defensive strength, relying on crashing the net for tips and rebounds, but that tends to be the type of third- or fourth-line player fans love. He’s the logical player to get a boost with Appleton out of the lineup and a helpful bottom-six player overall.
Morgan Barron will occasionally turn the corner on a defender, dropping his shoulder and barrelling his way to the front of the net the way Appleton likes to. Barron is bigger, so it creates a ton of chaos when it works, and it works just often enough to make you wonder how he’s stuck on eight points in 42 games. Some of it is about total minutes — Winnipeg’s fourth line averages between eight and nine minutes of five-on-five time each night — and some is about their secondary shutdown role. Some of it is also just about poor finishing — he’s getting his chances from close to the net but is scoring on fewer of his shots than he did in his first two seasons as a Jet. He has a positive defensive impact, despite being unable to stem the flow of the tide on the penalty kill, and most teams’ fourth-line players wouldn’t grade out this well.
Rasmus Kupari is a fast skater and hardworking player but hasn’t followed his highlight-reel preseason with similar impact on the Jets’ fourth line. The effort he showed on Barron’s goal against Nashville is always there; the efficacy often isn’t, with Kupari forechecking and backchecking with plenty of verve and little impact. On the PK, it’s more of the same: plenty of hustle but seams open up because his reads don’t match the pace of his feet. Kupari is stuck on four points in 38 games; for comparison, Matt Hendricks put up 13 points in 60 games during a heavily criticized 2017-18 season.
David Gustafsson is the player whose job Kupari won in training camp. He’s made it back into the lineup regularly via Appleton’s injury but remains the only full-time Jets forward without a point. Gustafsson has enough size, strength and hockey sense to acquit himself well on the fourth line. For now, the good news is he’s recovered from the concussion he suffered in a fight against Trent Frederic on Dec. 10. The inexperienced fighter should never have been put in that position against Frederic; the Jets were incensed and rightfully so.
(Photo of Gabriel Vilardi, Kyle Connor and Mark Scheifele: Chris Tanouye / Getty Images)
