Illegal Curve Hockey

What does being in a playoff spot at U.S. Thanksgiving mean for the Winnipeg Jets

Photo Credit: Colin Jensen

While our friends south of the border enjoy a day full of NFL football and turkey, today is a special day as well for those prognosticators who want to evaluate their pre-season predictions. Not many pundits gave the Jets much of a chance before the season began and taking a look at their Central Division competition it isn’t difficult to understand how they reached that conclusion.

Fast forward seven weeks to the present and the Jets are sitting 8th in the Western Conference (4th in the Central). Why is this relevant? The Toronto Star did a study of what it meant for teams who were in the playoffs on U.S. Thanksgiving and the results were as follows:

“Each year, typically 12 or 13 of the 16 teams in playoff spots at this point, with roughly 25 per cent of the season done, keep their spots by season’s end.”

As stated above the Jets are in 8th in the West with 27 points but where is the competition? They are just ahead of Minnesota who has 24 points (3 games in hand), San Jose who has 24 points (o games in hand), Dallas has 22 points (2 games in hand) as well as Arizona/Colorado who both have 21 points (both with 1 game in hand).

So is it time to plan a whiteout or whatever the Jets 2.0 version will be called?

Photo Credit: Colin Jensen

Probably not with so many teams so close to the playoff line but for Jets fans it is a lot better for your team to be on the inside, than on the outside looking in.

It is also worth noting that the Jets are just four points back of 2nd in the West and three back of 1st in the Central (Nashville/St. Louis) although all those teams have a few games on hand.

So what do you think? Will the Jets be playing meaningful hockey in April? Or is this just a tease as the team continues to build for the future?

David Minuk

Working hard on a daily basis to provide the latest Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose news for our readers and listeners. I also appear on the Illegal Curve Hockey Show every Saturday on our YouTube channel as well as the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show after every single Jets game. And I occasionally jump in the play-by-play booth at Canada Life to provide colour analysis during Manitoba Moose games.