One thing was certain before training camp got underway: the Winnipeg Jets would not have captain Adam Lowry ready for Game 1 of the regular season on October 9th, after he had offseason hip surgery. The expectation was he’d be ready to go around November 1st. But after three weeks of camp, two more players have joined him on the IR ranks — Dylan Samberg, who was ruled out 6–8 weeks with a broken wrist, and Cole Perfetti, who is out week-to-week with an ankle injury. Although worth noting that Samberg and Perfetti will start the season on IR while Lowry is listed as non-roster IR.
Of course, with those injuries comes opportunity for other players. This training camp, two forwards have taken a step forward — Nikita Chibrikov, who recently signed a two-year extension with Winnipeg, and Parker Ford, who in a training camp two seasons ago was seen as a solid 13th forward option but ultimately ended up down in the AHL to start his first full season as a pro.
Some folks thought Winnipeg may choose to retain eight defencemen as they did last season to avoid potentially losing depth on the backend to the waiver wire. However, on Sunday they put 2019 1st rounder Ville Heinola on waivers. He cleared allowing them to get him to their AHL affiliate where he can rebuild his confidence and the organization can retain him as a depth piece.
The final move to get to roster compliance was expected to be sending prospect Brad Lambert to the Moose but Jonathan Toews, who we saw skating on yesterday’s day off with Adam Lowry, will begin the year on non-roster IR which means the speedy Finn will remain with the team for now.
Photo Credit: Dave Minuk (Illegal Curve)
This leaves the Jets with the following 23 players on their roster.
Projected lines and D pairs:
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Nyquist-Toews-Chibrikov
Niederreiter-Namestnikov-Iafallo
Koepke-Barron-Pearson
Lambert-Gustafsson-Ford
Morrissey-DeMelo
Fleury-Pionk
Stanley-Schenn
Miller
Hellebuyck
Comrie
Season Outlook:
Can this team repeat their Presidents’ Trophy winning season again? Does Connor Hellebuyck have another Hart Trophy as MVP in him? The truth is this team needs to focus on staying in the mix for the first month to ensure they can offset all the injuries. The real focus is going to be on how this team performs in the playoffs.
Of course they have to play 82 games before the post-season begins and we want you to stick with us every step of the way. From covering practices to games be sure you’re following along on this site and subscribing to our YouTube channel.
