Depending on where you source your information, the Winnipeg Jets are either an easy pick to make the playoffs this season or an equally simple prediction to miss them. There doesn’t seem to be any grey area around their finish, according to most pundits.
But as an old NHL coach once said, never confuse activity for achievement. Just because Winnipeg didn’t make a summer splash in tinkering with its team via trade or free agency this off-season as others in the division did — like Nashville and Utah — that doesn’t at all forecast a falling-off point for the Jets this year either.
For Winnipeg, it all begins in goal with Connor Hellebuyck. Having a two-time Vezina Trophy winner behind you is a starting point the envy of most across the NHL.
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As a team, the Jets have been consistent in scoring goals the last three seasons and have shown a marked improvement for two straight years in preventing them. They were the only squad last season to allow fewer than 200 goals against.
In addition to Hellebuyck, the Jets’ core consists of six players that have played together for the past seven seasons, growing and maturing into a veteran-laden group with an improved culture and a burning desire to get over the first-round playoff hump together.
And while their head coach, Scott Arniel, might technically be new, his fingerprints have been all over this club for the last two years as an associate. And with a pair of specialized assistants focused on improving the special teams, nothing remotely suggests the Jets are headed for a significant downturn.
Now, it might not be a franchise record 52-win season as it was last year, but the Jets will, indeed, make the playoffs again this season – a third straight, for the record.
And depending on where you source your information, at least from this chair, understanding what we see and sense, there’s no grey area in making that prediction.
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