When looking at NHL teams and their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliates, there tends to be at least some correlation between successes and failures, but with the Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose, the differences couldn’t be more apparent.
Despite the direct link between the two with players and management, one team is finding a great deal of success while the other sits at the bottom of the league standings. The Jets have done some recalling of players, which can stifle success at the AHL level, but it hasn’t happened nearly enough to create the mess that has become the Moose in the first portion of the season.
The Jets, on the other hand, have not dropped below fourth in the NHL standings since Oct. 19, thanks largely to their historic 14-1-0 start that set a new NHL record. Simply put, the Jets have been the hottest team in the league nearly all season and they carried that momentum into the break.
The stark difference between the two teams is shocking and makes for a lot of questions coming out of the break, but the difference is that one team is getting asked how high they can go, and the other has people wondering how far from rock bottom they are.
Offense, Hellebuyck Helping the Jets Find Success
The Jets held strong at the top of the league standings as the holiday break hit, and they earned that with a pair of strong performances against the Minnesota Wild and Toronto Maple Leafs to bring their overall record to 25-10-1. That made them the first team this season to hit 25 wins and 50 points, continuing the trend of being the team to beat at the top of the standings.
The success extends further than those two games, as they were also 7-2-1 in their last 10. A lot of this stems from the league’s best power play and recent production from the Jets’ top line.
The power play turnaround after last season’s struggles has been nothing short of spectacular. Going from the 22nd-best unit at 18.8% to the league’s best at 32.1 is a real testament to the work that assistant coach Davis Payne has done after being named to Scott Arniel’s staff over the summer.
That top unit has been especially effective, and unless some league-wide revelation happens where teams figure out how to stop them, they’re going to continue to roll through opposing penalty-kill units.
Three members of that top unit also make up the Jets’ top line, and recently, they’ve found a great deal of success on the scoresheet. Since the start of December, the trio of Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, and Gabriel Vilardi have all been racking up the points. In the 12 games played, Connor has 18 points, Scheifele has 16, and Vilardi has 14.
The Jets’ stars up front aren’t the ones carrying the load, but this one isn’t all that surprising. Connor Hellebuyck continues to be the best goaltender in the NHL and that didn’t change one bit as the Jets won their way into the break. In December alone, Hellebuyck went 7-2-1 and registered a 0.926 Save Percentage (SV%) and seemed to solidify his claim on being the top netminder in the league.
After winning the Vezina Trophy in 2023-24, Hellebuyck picked up right where he left off and now leads the league in SV% (0.927), Goals Against Average (GAA) at 2.11, and Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) with 20.4 (MoneyPuck). His continued success makes it really easy for the Jets to keep winning consistently because even if they have an off night, he’s usually there to save them.
Scoring, Goaltending Highlight Issues for Moose
The Jets’ AHL affiliate can’t say the same in terms of successes, because there haven’t been many this season. The Moose sit 31st in the AHL this season with a dismal 7-17-1 record through 25 games, and there hasn’t been a lot to inspire the confidence that they can turn it around.
Heading into the holiday break, the Moose had won just one game out of nine in the entire month of December, that being a 2-1 victory over the Rockford IceHogs on Dec. 20. Ultimately, it was just an extension of the issues that have plagued them for nearly the entire 2024-25 campaign up to this point. The team just can’t seem to score effectively and that’s typically accompanied by poor performances in net with a team SV% of just 0.873.
The Moose have had a rough go in the crease, especially after assigning rookie netminder Domenic DiVincentiis to their ECHL affiliate, the Norfolk Admirals. That move came after the Jets re-claimed goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen off waivers from the Colorado Avalanche, and has seemingly backfired completely.
In his five AHL games, DiVincentiis was the better of the tandem with Thomas Milic, compiling a 2-3-0 record, a 0.930 SV%, and a 2.24 GAA. Since being sent down to the Admirals, he has played 11 games and has a 9-2-0 record with a 0.904 SV%. As a rookie, he’s making all the strides that you would hope, and he hasn’t been any part of the issue this season.
Related: Milic & DiVincentiis Learning to Control Manitoba Moose Crease
Those issues arise when you look at the other two in Milic and Kahkonen. Milic is 2-8-1 with a 0.862 SV% and a 3.71 GAA, while Kahkonen is slightly better with a 0.889 SV% and a 3.38 GAA. Neither is sufficient in allowing the team to find consistent success, and it makes it significantly harder on the rest of the team when they have to make up the difference on offense.
The team has a great deal of trouble finding the back of the net, scoring just 55 goals through their first 25 games, which is second worst in the league and a full 15 goals behind the next team in 30th. That’s a recipe for disaster, especially when their power play isn’t doing it for them either, clicking at just 12.7%.
The youngsters on the team are carrying the load, which also says a lot given the fact that two of them have spent time as NHL call-ups. Nikita Chibrikov leads the team with 13 points in 21 games, trailed by first-year defender Elias Salomonsson with 12 points, and last year’s team leader Brad Lambert with 11.
It’s the main factor when you look at how badly the team scuffled going into the break, and if they’re to regain any composure as they head into 2025, that should be the focus. They need to figure out how to put the puck in the net more effectively while keeping the opponent’s chances out of their net.
Very Different Expectations for the Two Teams
It’s crazy to think that the Moose were viewed as a playoff contender just three months ago, but that wasn’t a wild take given the mixture of youth and veteran talent on the team. Simply put, they’ve had a catastrophic start that completely sunk the expectations they entered the season with.
The contrast to the Jets’ successes makes the Moose situation look even more dire because it was almost the opposite in terms of pre-season predictions. The Jets were running back a nearly identical team with a fairly safe coaching hire to try and push them over the edge, making the Jets a fairly common “bubble team” pick for people.
Now, the Jets are the class of the league with everyone looking up at them. The difference going into 2025, however, is the Jets needing to prove the doubters wrong and avoid the well-known January slump, while the Moose just need to find a way to swim up to avoid drowning.
I don’t think anyone thought the two teams would be so different, but it’s clear that the organization’s philosophy to find NHL success might be coming at the expense of the AHL squad. Maybe something gets shaken up if the Moose continue to struggle in the New Year, but for now, things don’t appear to be getting any easier for the affiliate club.
