The Winnipeg Jets have cooled off quite a bit, having lost five of their last eight games after their scintillating start. That being said, they still own an 18-6-0 record through the first two months of the season.
The Jets had 14 games in November, and things don’t slow down for them at all as the holiday season approaches, with 15 more games before 2025 rings in.
Here, we’ll take a look at three keys to success for the Jets in December.
1: Realize They Are the “Hunted,” and Play Accordingly
The Jets aren’t sneaking up on anyone these days. They entered the season considered by most to be a fringe playoff team at best considering the high-profile free agents they lost in the offseason, but then they put the league on notice by being the first team in NHL history to win 14 of their first 15 games. Their utter dominance through October and the first half of November was a pretty clear indicator to opponents they are a team you have to bring your best to beat.
“We are the hunted team,” Nino Niederreiter said after a 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Nov. 27. “And you have to make sure we bring our best every single night to be successful. Didn’t do it tonight, and that’s why they got us.” (From ‘We are the hunted team,’ Winnipeg Sun, Nov. 28, 2024.)
It sure does seem that every team enters their matchups with the Jets with a chip on their shoulder, knowing that beating them would be a momentum builder and a potential team galvanizer. The Jets are indeed a good team, with a balanced attack, improved power play, and stellar goaltending. But they’re not immune from getting beat up on.
While they haven’t looked complacent in their recent middling stretch, they’ve had a couple of games where they started very poorly (against the Florida Panthers on Nov. 16, against the Minnesota Wild on Nov. 25, and against the Kings) or had breakdowns at key times (against the Golden Knights on Nov. 29.) The Jets had only one win in those four games, against the Wild, and the sole reason they won was because Connor Hellebuyck was otherworldly in the crease.
Knowing they are the “hunted” — that other teams aren’t treating the matchups as just another contest in a long 82-game grind — should remind the Jets that keeping up their intensity and work ethic is more important than ever. While they have banked a lot of early points, the season is not even half over. Recall 2022-23 — the Jets were in first place in January and ended up barely squeaking into the playoffs in the second wild-card spot due to a prolonged second-half slump.
2: Deal With Injury Adversity Up Front
The Jets’ forward core has been remarkably healthy to this point, but now injuries are beginning to test their depth.
Nikolaj Ehlers went down in the second period against the Golden Knights, suffering an ankle or foot injury while attempting to check Pavel Dorofeyev. Losing the dynamic Dane is something the Jets are used to — he has struggled with injuries throughout his career — but the loss is no less impactful. Ehlers is a game breaker who was off to the best start of his career, with nine goals and 16 assists for 25 points in 24 games.
On Saturday, head coach Scott Arniel said Ehlers was day to day and wouldn’t rule him out of Sunday’s game against the Dallas Stars. Alex Iafallo is the most-logical candidate to fill the second-line left-wing spot in Ehlers’ absence, and he jumped up from the fourth line after Ehlers left the game. David Gustafsson or a Manitoba Moose call-up — perhaps Brad Lambert or Nikita Chibrikov — will also have to be integrated into the lineup if Ehlers is out for an extended period.
Mark Scheifele is also clearly dealing with some sort of injury right now — possibly to his hand/wrist — evidenced by the facts he is not taking many faceoffs and is not producing to the degree he was earlier in the season.
Scheifele has largely ceded his duties in the dot to Gabriel Vilardi, who has played on Scheifele’s right wing all season. Since Nov. 19, when Scheifele scored a hat trick against the Florida Panthers, he has taken a paltry four faceoffs and none in his past three games. He has just two assists in the first five games of the Jets’ season-long six-game road trip.
Scheifele himself won’t admit he’s ailing, responding to recent questions as to why he’s not playing centre this way: “Gabe’s been doing well, so I’m just going to leave it at that… He’s been awesome.” (From ‘Scheifele situation shrouded in mystery,’ Winnipeg Free Press, Nov. 28, 2024.)
Scheifele is somewhat right that Vilardi, who played centre in juniors and earlier in his NHL career, has been good. He’s gone 42 for 76 in the last five games for a 55.26 per cent success rate. His worst performance came against the Golden Knights, where he won four of 14.
#NHLJets C Mark Scheifele didn't even attempt a single faceoff tonight. RW Gabe Vilardi took all 14 draws for that line.
— Mike McIntyre (@mikemcintyrewpg) November 26, 2024
Clearly something physically is going on, but not serious enough to knock him out of the lineup.
Getting Scheifele back to 100 per cent is crucial as he was excelling prior to the road trip with 12 goals and 12 assists for 24 points in 18 games. If that means sitting him for a game or two so he can recover and avoid more serious injury down the line, that’s what Arniel should do. The Jets have a stretch of five straight against non-elite teams (the St. Louis Blues, Buffalo Sabres, Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Boston Bruins) after facing the Stars, so an ideal time to rest Scheifele is on the horizon.
In the meantime, Arniel could continue to deploy Vilardi as the top-line centre, or test out Cole Perfetti in the role. Perfetti, also a centre in juniors, has been deployed mainly on the right wing throughout his career and exclusively this season, but just suffered through an 11-game goalless drought (he snapped it with two against the Golden Knights.) Perhaps a change of scenery could help him build momentum.
3: Ramp Up Heinola’s Involvement
Ville Heinola is finally back in the NHL after going nearly two years between big-league games, and Arniel eased the now-23-year-old back into the swing of things by deploying him on the third pairing with Colin Miller for two-straight games. That was a smart thing to do, considering Heinola was just coming back from another ankle surgery that kept him out for two months and only played two games with the Moose on a conditioning stint before making his Jets’ season debut on Nov. 25.
Related: Jets’ Heinola Has Great Opportunity with Samberg Out
What wasn’t a smart thing to do was to scratch Heinola for the game against the Golden Knights in favour of Logan Stanley, who hadn’t played in three weeks due to injury. Stanley’s lack of foot speed was once again exploited when he got absolutely torched by Brett Howden in the neutral zone on the Golden Knights’ game-tying goal late in the first.
Arniel has used Haydn Fleury in the second-pairing spot vacated by Dylan Samberg, whose broken foot paved the way for Heinola and Stanley to rejoin the lineup in the first place. With all respect to Fleury, he’s not a true top-four talent. He’s more of a shutdown guy capable of providing a solid 13 to 15 minutes on the third pairing and doesn’t provide much in the way of offense, with two assists in 13 games.
The sooner Arniel puts the swift-skating, puck-moving specialist Heinola onto the second pairing beside Neal Pionk, the better. While Samberg had three goals and three assists for six points in 21 games before being felled by a Steven Stamkos slap shot on Nov. 23, Heinola has even more offensive upside and power-play quarterbacking capabilities. He has proven that with the Moose, racking up 103 points (23 goals, 80 assists) in 154 games since being drafted 20th overall in 2019.
Ramping up the blue line’s point production has been a hallmark focus in Winnipeg since now-retired head coach Rick Bowness and Arniel came on board ahead of 2022-23. Heinola getting a top-four assignment would not only be on brand, but also give him an excellent chance to cement the full-time NHL role that’s eluded him more due to bad luck with injuries than deficiencies in his play.
He suffered a fractured ankle in the Jets’ final 2023 preseason game and never got back in the lineup after recovering from surgery; Bowness said back then that Heinola had played well enough to crack the opening-night lineup, but once he was ready to go in January, there was simply no room for him on a blue line that was thriving and giving up a historically-low number of goals. He then had to have the second surgery on the same ankle this preseason to repair an infected screw, once again quashing his chance of being in the opening-night lineup despite two vacant spots left by the departed Brenden Dillon and Nate Schmidt.
Jets Begin December Slate Against Stars
The Jets’ first game of the month is Dec. 1 in Dallas versus the Stars to finally wrap their long, gruelling road trip. Overall, they play eight games at Canada Life Centre and seven on the road, with a four-day break for Christmas from Dec. 24 through Dec. 27.
