The most wonderful time of the year? Not for the Winnipeg Jets.
The Nightmare Before Christmas
You don’t need to check a list twice to realize the Jets have been very, very naughty so far in the 2025-26 season.
The defending Presidents’ Trophy winners, after Sunday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Utah Mammoth, are just 15-17-3 to sit seventh in the Central Division, six points out of a wild-card spot, and 29th league wide in points. They have gone just 6-14-3 since their 9-3-0 start and have not won back-to-back games in more than a month. They have been shut out five times already.
What a rapid fall from relevance it’s been. The Jets were 24-10-1 on this date last season and first place in the Central and Western Conference. But this season, every time they seem to hit rock bottom, they sink to an even deeper one. With 47 games to go, they are five regulation losses away from matching their total from all of last season.
If Jack Skellington stumbled across Winnipeg, he might find it not even worth trying to take over.
Too Many Passengers
The jet is not supposed to be a passenger one.
Kyle Connor, Connor Hellebuyck, Josh Morrissey, Mark Scheifele, and Gabriel Vilardi are doing their best in the cockpit to keep the plane from crashing into a mountain, but too many of their teammates are reading SkyMall in first class.
The team is old and slow, incapable of keeping up with younger clubs. Their secondary scoring has been non-existent for long stretches, and more than a handful of players who have strong track records of offensive success have been ice cold, if not comatose.
Vladislav Namestnikov has nine points and only one assist since Nov. 2. Nino Niederreiter has 15, but none in December. Adam Lowry has four points in 24 games. Cole Perfetti, who had 50 points last season, has five in 21 games and was recently benched.
The veteran free-agent additions have been busts. Gustav Nyquist has zero goals as a Jet and just seven assists; Tanner Pearson has a couple goals but only six points; and highly-hyped hometown hero Jonathan Toews has only nine points, two since the start of November, and has been demoted to the fourth line.
A General Manager Unwilling to Shake Up Flawed Team
General manager (GM) Kevin Cheveldayoff has been unwilling to make any moves, including making a trade or even just waiving some of the veterans to make room for the youth with the Manitoba Moose. This indicates either that he’s checked out, overly loyal, or simply unwilling to admit he made some grave errors when constructing his roster and trying to replace Nikolaj Ehlers.
Whichever interpretation you subscribe to, it seems he has reached his expiration date after 15 years at the helm.
Related: 4 Mock Trades the Winnipeg Jets Could Make to Boost Their Offence
This definitely isn’t what Connor, Hellebuyck, Scheifele, and Vilardi signed long-term extensions for. This type of fall from grace also isn’t a good look for an organization that was only beginning to re-engage its fanbase and refortify its season-ticket numbers.
The average attendance is down from last season, and can you blame the fans for staying away when the GM doesn’t seem like he can be bothered to even try and sort out the sorry state of affairs he helped create?
A Head Coach at a Loss
Head coach Scott Arniel appears at a loss on how to turn things around.
Although he’s changed up his lines a ton from game to game and period to period this month, with the only the same-old personnel at his disposal, it amounts to hitting the brakes on a freight train barrelling 100 kilometres per hour in an inevitable direction — south — and hoping it can stop on a dime.
Ugly Underlying Numbers
The underlying numbers show the Jets are getting the results their deserve.
They are 28th in expected goals for percentage at 47.55. Similarly, they are 24th in Corsi For percentage at 47.79 and 24th in Fenwick for percentage at 48.29. It’s tough to make good things happen if you don’t have the puck.
Christmas Magic Can’t Save Jets’ Season
Santa Claus and all his Christmas magic cannot save this club. A six-day break doesn’t seem like it will do much either.
The Jets are still saying the right things, but the fact they haven’t identified a clear path back to merrier times doesn’t bode well for a happy New Year.
“We’ll look for a solution over the break,” Connor said after the loss to the Mammoth. “That’s obviously a focal point for us coming into the second half.”
The time for looking for a solution was six weeks ago, when the downward slide started. The sad thing is is that we know that they know how they have to play to be successful — you don’t win 56 games by a fluke — but it’s foolish to expect they will turn things around at this point. The 2025-26 Jets are what they are, and that’s a fragile team destined for the NHL Draft Lottery. They’ll probably keep getting Globetrotted on, like this.
Considering their roster construction and huge number of under-performers, the Jets are simply not a playoff team. There’s not point in pouting or crying about that. Although this season has brought a lump of coal, a gift in the form of a certain Whitehorse-born winger could be on its way in six months.
As for whether the Stanley Cup window which appeared wide open just eight months ago is shut for good, well, we won’t ruin your last few days before Christmas with that discussion.
