The Winnipeg Jets may have to just focus on surviving the first portion of the regular season rather than thriving.
What else could be expected considering the players who went down with injuries during a disastrous preseason?
Cole Perfetti was the latest to hit the shelf — he sustained an ankle sprain while throwing a check on Kevin Bahl in the Jets’ final preseason game on Oct. 3 and is out the nebulous week to week.
“That’s not the best news we wanted to get,” head coach Scott Arniel said following Sunday’s practice to close out training camp. “If it’s broken, you usually have a pretty good timeline. When it’s a high-ankle sprain there, it’s a little trickier.”
Perfetti joins Dylan Samberg, who is out six-to-eight weeks with a broken wrist he suffered in the fourth preseason game on Sept. 27, and Adam Lowry, who is out until at least November as he continues to recover from a May hip surgery.
Related: Jets’ Samberg Out 6-to-8 Weeks With Broken Wrist
Jonathan Toews also tweaked something in the preseason game on Sept. 30, perhaps not surprising since he is playing in his first games in two-and-a-half years. However, he was “back up and running full bore” in the final practice, Arniel said.
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s two top-nine forwards and a top-four defenseman not in the lineup opening night.
(As an aside, too many players suffering long-term injuries in nothing games is one of the reasons the NHL is shortening the preseason beginning in 2026-27.)
Being without their heart-and-soul captain, the winger expected to make up for a lot of Nikolaj Ehlers’ lost production and take another step after career season, and arguably their best shut-down d-man are obviously major hits to the Jets’ chances of getting off to to a fast start when the games start counting for real on Thursday, to say the least.
Jets Must Set History Aside to Survive First Quarter of 2025-26
The Jets won’t likely go a historic 15-1-0 to begin this season like they did last. They likely won’t win the Presidents’ Trophy again (and were in tough to do that even before the injuries.) What they need to pivot to is to find a way to at least stay in the Central Division pack until their ailing players begin to return.
Historically, nearly 80 per cent of the time, teams who aren’t in a playoff position on American Thanksgiving don’t make the postseason. American “Turkey Day” is Nov. 27
The Jets have 22 games before then, or almost exactly a quarter of the campaign. If they could manage to go around .500 or slightly better in that frame — say grabbing 11 or 12 wins and losing a couple in overtime — they’d be in a manageable spot by the time Lowry, Perfetti, and Samberg are back with three quarters of the season to go. Lowry is aiming to return by the start of November, Samberg should return mid to late that month, and Perfetti could come back before or after either of them — his vague diagnosis doesn’t allow for an accurate prediction.
In the meantime, it’ll be up to not only those who directly replace those three in the lineup, but everyone else — those who may have not made the opening-night roster if not for the injuries, the veteran core, and the newcomers — to produce just a little bit more. Wins will have to come by committee, and reigning NHL MVP and back-to-back Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck might have to steal one or two as well.
“It’s just what happens in hockey,” defenseman Josh Morrissey said. “And obviously, we’ve got lots of depth here, and guys that are gonna have to step up in some big absences to start the year.”
Survive, if not thrive, with the view that things are going to get better: that’s the name of the game for the Jets early in the season.
