The Jets are signing UFA winger Cole Koepke, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. It’s a one-year deal worth $1MM, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger. They’ve also signed winger Tanner Pearson to an identical one-by-one contract, per Dreger.
Koepke comes to Manitoba on the heels of his first full year in the NHL. Despite spending the first two years of his career with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Koepke signed on as a depth forward last summer with the Boston Bruins.
Carving out a role on the team’s fourth line, Koepke turned into a consistent player for the Bruins. He scored 10 goals and 17 points in 73 games with a +1 rating, averaging 11:15 of ice time per night with 177 hits.
Unfortunately, his scoring output was largely isolated to the first month of the regular season. In October, Koepke scored three goals and seven points with a +10 rating in the Bruins’ first 11 games while only tallying seven goals and 10 points with a -9 rating over his remaining 62 games. Given this situation, it’s hard to picture Koepke playing anywhere other than the fourth line with the Jets.
Meanwhile, the team added some tertiary scoring to their bottom-six in Pearson. After scoring six goals and 18 points in 68 games in his last year with the Vancouver Canucks and one season with the Montreal Canadiens combined, Pearson had a quality bounceback year with the Vegas Golden Knights during the 2024-25 campaign.
Largely playing in the team’s bottom-six, Pearson scored 12 goals and 27 points in 78 contests with a +4 rating. Winnipeg didn’t have very many problems putting the puck in the net last year, but they’re in a position where they’ll need to replace the production lost by Nikolaj Ehlers by committee.
PHR’s Brennan McClain contributed significantly to this article.