The Jets are getting ready for the 2025 NHL Draft this weekend which meant it was an opportunity to hear from Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff who spoke for about 25 minutes this morning on a wide variety of topics including the health of team captain Adam Lowry. We learned late last month that Lowry had undergone successful hip surgery which would require 5-6 months of rehab and which was expected to cost him the first bit of the 2025-26 season.

Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
Given this was the first time we’ve heard from the GM since the news about Lowry was released he was asked for a status update. He was first asked if this was something that was discovered during the end of season medicals.
“No. This has probably come up a couple of times now and he’s been doing maintenance on it over the course of years. After every season you kinda do a benchmark test to see where things are at and this year after the test we compared it against the last year’s test and there was noticeable change. So it was doctor’s recommendation that ‘it’s gonna happen, you don’t want it to happen in the middle of the year’, so we made the hard decision, but not hard decision to get it done at the beginning. I think he’s got a check up here shortly. Arnie (head coach Scott Arniel) said he spoke to him a couple of days ago there as well and I think “almost off the crutches” I think and stuff like that, so moving along.”
Since the timeline for his being out was rather broad GMKC was asked if that has any more clarity?
“No, and we won’t really until I think he progresses into the skating phases and stuff like that. Those are things where you also wanna be cautious. because you put all that time and effort into rehab, you want to make sure that it’s the right decision.”
So that’s the latest on 17.
