Jansen Harkins, making his NHL playoff debut, opens the scoring for the Jets in Game 2

I honestly can’t say that I’m surprised by Jansen Harkins’ success. Harkins is one of the hardest working players I’ve ever seen and probably the most focused. We really saw his game start to change with the Moose late during the 2018-19 season and he hit that next level this year.

Today, in his first ever NHL playoff game the Jets 2015 2nd rounder, put Winnipeg up 1-0 in a critical game 2.  Here was the goal:

This is a player his AHL head coach (Pascal Vincent) told me in April was his best story of the season.  Harkins also provides a template for other prospects that the path to the NHL is anything but straight.