Maybe the Las Vegas Golden Knights are the story everyone wants to see. The expansion team in its first season with a squad of every other team’s rejects has a chance to win the Stanley cup in what would be one of the greatest underdog stories ever. But as exciting as that is, it doesn’t carry with it the desperation that the Winnipeg Jets feel. Winnipeg had a team in the NHL from 1979-1996 and over that span they only won two playoff series despite having a rabid fan base. They finally relocated to Phoenix in 1996. The Atlanta Thrashers came into the league as an expansion team in 1999. They made the playoffs only once, and got swept, from 1999-2011 before moving to Winnipeg and giving the city another shot at having a playoff team. Coming into this season, the Jets had also only made the playoffs once, also getting swept, meaning that the franchise still never had a playoff win. The players, fans, and city were all anxious.
Change began at the start of the NHL season as the Jets got off to a torrid start offensively. All of the initial pressure was relieved when the Jets won their first game of the playoffs against the Minnesota Wild, but work remains to be done. The success of this season was long overdue for the Winnipeg faithful, who bought the 5th highest percentage of tickets available to them among all teams. The Jets are the small market team overdue for a victory and shouldn’t be over shadowed by Las Vegas’s story. To make it even more important, Canada hasn’t had a Stanley Cup winner since the Canadians in 1993, so the whole country is overdue. And the Jets have built their roster in a textbook manner for a small market team, making them easy to cheer for.
None of Winnipeg’s top three scorers are over 22 years old. Patrick Laine (44 goals) was the Jets’ 2016 first round pick, Kyle Connor (31 goals) was their 2015 first round pick, and Nikolaj Ehlers (29 goals) was their 2014 first round pick. This ability to build a roster through home grown players has allowed for them to thrive. The other stars of the team, Blake Wheeler, Dustin Byfuglien, and Mark Schiefele have also been with the team for a while. Wheeler and Byfuglien came to the franchise in 2010 and Schiefele was their first pick in the 2011 draft. This mix of drafting and patience is a strategy that many hockey teams have a tough time sticking with because it can take a while to reach success, but now the Jets have a young core that has been created by a management that was willing to wait for success.
The only hard part about jumping on the Jets bandwagon is the fact that they have a window that is just now opening and should stay open for the next few years. With a large portion of their goals coming from guys 25 or younger and a goalie who lead the league in wins and finished 5th in save percentage that is only 24. Their youth is a great thing in the long run but could cause struggles now due to lack of playoff experience. And their path isn’t easy.
Assuming the Jets can close out the series against the Wild, they will likely play the Predators in the second round. They went 2-4 against Nashville in the regular season, and the Predators are the only team in the NHL with a better record than them. Winnipeg has gone 11-2 in their last 13 games and went 32-7-2 at home during the regular season. The postseason is a whole different animal, but those are both advantages that the Jets have over the Preds that can be pivotal in getting past them. After that, they could play anyone. The most likely opponent would be the Golden Knights, the only team with as little playoff experience as Winnipeg. After the Predators, no team played as well as the Jets all year, so Winnipeg would have the advantage of really any other team until they got to the Stanley Cup Finals. Here, they could end up playing a multitude of teams. Likely opponents would be Tampa, Boston, Pittsburgh, or Washington. All had fantastic seasons and have more playoff experience than Winnipeg. Regardless of who it is, if the Jets make it that far, they should be the darling of any fan of the underdog. The Stanley Cup playoffs are looking to be exciting yet again.
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