The Winnipeg Jets’ 2024-25 season is nearing its close, with just 16 games to go until the playoffs. Despite the postseason looming on the horizon, there’s still a whole lot of uncertainty to who the Jets will face in the first round. There are currently no fewer than six teams they have a reasonable likelihood of facing. It will all depend on how things shake out in the standings between now and mid April.
If the Jets can manage to hold on their current spot atop the Western Conference (they currently sit eight points ahead of the Dallas Stars but the Stars have two games in hand) they will have the benefit of facing the second Western Conference wild-card team. If they finish first in the Central but a team in the Pacific Division finishes with more points to win the West (the Vegas Golden Knights, with 83 points, are the only team with a reasonable shot of doing that,) the Jets will face the first wild-card team.
Here, we’ll rank the potential first-round matchups from best to worst for the Jets, who will try to avoid a third-straight first-round exit.
Standings and statistics entering play March 13.
Best: Utah Hockey Club
Potential Matchup Situations:
- Jets (Western Conference winner) versus Utah (Western wild card 2)
- Jets (Central Division winner but not Western Conference winner) versus Utah (Western wild card 1)
Not many people would have predicted that the Utah Hockey Club would be in the mix for a playoff spot in its inaugural season after years of languishing in the desert as the Arizona Coyotes, but here they are, just two points out of the second wild-card spot with 69 points.
Utah has had its fair share of injury problems this season and have been mostly without goaltender Connor Ingram (he recently re-entered the NHL Player Assistance Program for mental-health reasons after his mother died) but have been kept afloat by a mix of resilient, sneaky-good youngsters and reliable veterans.
Related: Utah Victorious in Must-Win Game Against the Ducks
Captain Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz lead the way with 74 and 50 points, respectively, and a number of blossoming young stars — Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, and Barrett Hayton, among others — have chipped in nicely. Karel Vejmelka, who just signed a big five-year extension and was a bit of a Jet killer with the Coyotes, has been solid between the pipes in Ingram’s absence even when the defense in front of him has been questionable.
Despite not being a pushover like the Coyotes were, Utah has been a streaky squad and overall doesn’t match up to the Jets skill-wise or statistics-wise (21st in goals for compared to second, 13th in goals against compared to first, and 11th on the power play compared to first.) One would have to think the Jets would enter a series against Utah confident their offensive prowess, strong defensive structure, and great goaltending would eventually be too much for a team that’s taken undeniable steps forward but isn’t elite yet.
The Jets and Utah have faced three times this season, with the Jets winning twice (3-0 on Nov. 5 and 5-2 on Jan. 24) and losing once (5-2 on Jan. 20.) The Jan. 20 loss, one of the Jets’ worst performances of the season and one head coach Scott Arniel called them out for, preceded the franchise-long 11-game winning streak. The teams face one more time on April 5.
Second-Best: Calgary Flames
Potential Matchup Situations:
- Jets (Western Conference winner) versus Flames (Western wild card 2)
- Jets (Central Division winner but not Western Conference winner) versus Flames (Western wild card 1)
The Calgary Flames are another team in a battle for a wild-card spot, currently sitting in the second spot with 71 points. They have stuck around valiantly in the playoff picture despite trading away a lot of star power last season and entering this one considered by most to be a rebuilder.
Playing the Flames would be a favourable scenario for the Jets as Calgary doesn’t match up well to them in offensive firepower (Nazem Kadri and Jonathan Huberdeau are tied for the team lead with 48 points each and the Jets have five players with more than that) overall depth, or defensive structure. The Flames are also fairly undisciplined — allowing the 13th-most power play opportunities this season — and have the 26th-ranked penalty kill, which would potentially give the Jets’ top-ranked regime more chances to feast.
The Flames do, however, have an excellent starting goaltender in Dustin Wolf, who like Connor Hellebuyck, can paper over his team’s flaws and steal a game singlehandedly.
The Jets lost the last time the teams faced in the playoffs, but very little — if anything — can be taken from that series and applied to this potential one. The five-game play-in series in the summer 2020 bubble playoffs after a four-month season hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where the Flames beat the Jets three games to one, was hardly a normal situation.
The teams have faced three times this season, with the Jets winning twice (5-3 on Oct. 26 and 5-2 on Jan. 26) and losing once (3-1 on Jan. 18.) The teams don’t face each other again.
Third-Best: Vancouver Canucks
Potential Matchup situations:
- Jets (Western Conference winner) versus Canucks (Western wild card 2)
- Jets (Central Division winner but not Western Conference winner) versus Canucks (Western wild card 1)
The Canucks are another team jockeying for a wild-card spot, tied with the Flames with 71 points but out of the second spot as the Flames have a game in hand. They have some high-end talent but Brock Boeser and Elias Petterson have underachieved this season with 38 and 37 points respectively, and the public rift between Petterson and J.T. Miller — which forced general manager Patrik Allvin to ship Miller out of town — caused a huge and lengthy distraction.
The Canucks do have Quinn Hughes, arguably the NHL’s best offensive defenseman, who leads the team with 60 points, and a strong penalty kill that ranks fifth in the league. However, like the Flames, they are not nearly as deep as the Jets. That includes in goal, where Kevin Lankinen has been forced to shoulder the majority of the load due to Thatcher Demko’s ongoing injury issues.
The Jets and Canucks have played just once this season, with the Jets blowing out the Canucks 6-1 on Jan. 14. The teams face twice more, on March 18 and March 30. The teams have never met in the playoffs in the 2.0 era.
Third-Worst: St. Louis Blues
Potential Matchup Situations:
- Jets (Western Conference winner) versus Blues (Western wild card 2)
- Jets (Central Division winner but not Western Conference winner) versus Blues (Western wild card 1)
The Blues are yet another team hanging around in the wild-card race despite being in a retool and having a lot of youngsters and top prospects into their NHL lineup. They sit tied with Utah with 69 points.
The Blues have some good offensive talent in Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Dylan Holloway and others, but like the aforementioned three teams, aren’t as deep or prolific as the Jets. They also don’t have great special teams —owning the league’s 24th-place power play and 29th-place penalty kill — and aren’t particularly experienced, with 11 players suiting up for them this season age 25 or younger.
That being said, the Jets haven’t walked all over the Blues this season by any means, making it the least-desirable potential matchup versus a wild-card team. The teams have faced three times this season, with the Jets winning two close ones (3-2 on Oct. 22 and 4-3 in a shootout on Feb. 22) and losing one (4-1 on Dec. 3.) The shootout win required a game-tying goal by Gabriel Vilardi with less than 30 seconds left. The teams face once more, on April 7.
The Jets lost the last time the teams faced in the playoffs. In 2019, when their locker-room issues first became apparent and they fell out of first place in the Central as a result of a prolonged slump in March and April, they lost to the Blues in the first round in six games. Jordan Binnington, who as a rookie goalie that season helped the Blues go from last in the Central to Stanley Cup champions, is still their starter but has not been nearly as effective in the past few seasons, 4 Nations Face-Off heroics aside.
Second-Worst: Minnesota Wild
Potential Matchup Situations:
- Jets (Western Conference winner) versus Wild (Western wild card 2)
- Jets (Central Division winner but not Western Conference winner) versus Wild (Western wild card 1)
- Jets (second in Central Division) versus Wild (third in Central Division)
The Wild, currently fairly comfortably in the first wild-card spot with 78 points, represent an uptick in quality over the four aforementioned teams. They are not a high-scoring team at 25th league wide in goals and have a poor penalty kill that ranks 31st, but are a stingy defensive team five-on-five with good goaltending that doesn’t give up a lot (allowing the 12th-fewest goals.)
The Jets have had the Wild’s number in the past few seasons. This season is no exception as the Jets went 3-0-0 against their closest geographical opponent, snagging a 2-1 overtime win Oct. 13, 4-1 win Nov. 25, and a 5-0 rout on Dec. 21. The teams don’t face each other again.
The Jets defeated the Wild the last time the two teams met in the playoffs. Winnipeg’s 2018 run to the Western Conference Final, which electrified the city and renewed the Whiteout, started with them besting the Wild in five games for the Jets 2.0’s first-ever playoff series victory.
The Jets also went 4-0-0 last season against the Wild, when the bad blood really started brewing between them. That’s one of the reasons this matchup is ranked second-worst.
A first-round series between “Friendly Manitoba” and “Minnesota Nice” would be anything but friendly and nice and the Jets likely don’t want a physical — or even dirty, considering Ryan Hartman’s goonish tactics against the Jets in the past, head-shotting Nikolaj Ehlers and intentionally high sticking Cole Perfetti — rivalry series to start off what they are hoping is a long playoff run.
There’s also the Marc-Andre Fleury of it all. Even though he’s the backup to Filip Gustavsson, the Jets won’t want to have any potential to face 40-year-old who absolutely stoned them in the 2018 Western Conference Final when he was a member of the Golden Knights.
A Jets/Wild matchup could mean the Jets have fallen out of first in Western Conference or even first in the Central, meaning they would have had to struggle between now and then and would not enter with momentum on their side. The Wild are just three points behind the Colorado Avalanche for third in the Central.
Worst: Colorado Avalanche
Potential Matchup Situations:
- Jets (Second in Central Division) versus Avalanche (Third in Central Division)
- Jets (Central Division winner but not Western Conference winner) versus Avalanche (Western wild card 1)
A worst-case scenario for the Jets’ first round would be to have to face the team that ousted them from the first round last season in embarrassing fashion.
The Avalanche, currently third in the Central with 81 points, are an even deeper squad than last season. They added longtime sniper Brock Nelson from the New York Islanders and veteran power forward Charlie Coyle from the Boston Bruins at the trade deadline to an already-potent offensive attack that features Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and Martin Necas, among others.
Related: Colorado Avalanche 2025 Trade Deadline Recap
The Avalanche also shored up their goaltending situation earlier in the season by acquiring Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood in separate trades to replace the struggling Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen.
A playoff-hardened team that won the Stanley Cup in 2022 and is clearly gunning for another with their current core, the Avalanche simply have no obvious weaknesses to exploit.
The Jets and Avalanche have faced four times this season, with the Jets winning three games (1-0 on Nov. 7, 3-0 on Jan. 11, 2-3 in overtime on Jan. 22, and losing once (5-2 on Dec. 31.) The teams don’t face each other again.
However, a 3-1-0 record doesn’t mean much as we saw how little the Jets sweeping the 2023-24 regular-season slate 3-0-0 meant in the playoffs. The Avalanche systematically dominated the Jets in the first round last spring, exploiting their every weakness and ultimately turning what seemed to be an even matchup on paper into a laugher that ended in just five games.
From a pure psychological standpoint, playing the Avalanche could elicit a “here-we-go-again” feeling among players and fans alike. From a pure statistical standpoint, the Avalanche are the best of any potential opponent.
As the West and Central’s top team, the Jets control their own destiny in ensuring this first-round matchup doesn’t happen and they must. It would be crushing if a team that has accomplished so much this season loses in the first round for the third-straight playoffs, and the Avalanche pose the most serious threat of another early golfing season in Winnipeg.