A year after the Jets won the Presidents’ Trophy with a 116-point regular season, they enter play today in the exact opposite situation, sitting dead last in the NHL standings. While the team hasn’t ruled out a second-half playoff push, Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press argues that one of Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff’s priorities should be to open up a spot on the roster for prospect Elias Salomonsson. The 21-year-old is in his second season in North America and got his first taste of NHL action in late November with a four-game recall. However, an extended look down the stretch if the team is out of contention would give the Jets a chance to assess his overall readiness for 2026-27. That said, Winnipeg has eight blueliners on its active roster at the moment so some moves would need to be made first. Luke Schenn, Colin Miller, and Logan Stanley are all on expiring deals; two of those would probably need to move before Salomonsson could get another recall.
More from out West:
- Flames center Mikael Backlund was a surprise omission from Sweden’s Olympic team which was revealed on Friday. However, he confirmed to Aftonbladet’s Per Bjurman that he is on their shortlist of potential injury replacements although he was passed over when William Karlsson was ruled out for the event. Backlund is having a nice bounce-back season offensively, notching 10 goals and 25 assists in 40 games, putting him on pace to reach the 50-point mark for just the second time in the last nine seasons. However, that resurgence wasn’t enough to secure him a spot on Sweden’s group.
- Blackhawks center Connor Bedard has taken the next step in recovery from a shoulder injury as Mark Lazerus of The Athletic relays (Twitter link) that he has resumed doing shooting drills. The 20-year-old was injured taking a faceoff around three weeks ago and remains out indefinitely. Before the injury, Bedard had gotten off to a very strong start to his season with 15 goals and 29 assists in just 31 games, setting himself up nicely with his contract expiring at the end of June.
Would nice if Guerin would release a replacement list like other nations have. Throw some of the snubbed players a bone……unless they told him to pound sand. ;D
Guerin told certain players privately to “be ready”. That is all that should be done for now.
FWIW, I prefer the way other nations handled it.
Nice call on the USA Junior Goalies being the weak spot. They were all pretty bad. The decision to start that kid against the Swedes was certainly a head scratcher to be sure.
True, but that OT loss to Finland wasn’t Kempf’s fault (though he did lose his angle on the GWG). Team never found any lineup cohesion and just couldn’t bury quality scoring chances. And I don’t ever want Bob Motzko coaching a WJC team again. Hoping Dave Carle takes the reigns again next year.
Yeah he doesn’t impress me either. Carle is the best Coach in the World that isn’t in the NHL It’s like the difference between a cabana on the beach and the Empire State Bldg.
Did you notice that when the USA falls behind in the 3rd that the whole team becomes individuals that think they can do a Bobby Orr end to end rush and get ALL the glory?
This years version did, but not the David Carle teams the previous two years. Coaching matters.
Any team that has pylon Logan Stanley in the lineup will never win anything.
Don’t worry about that, he will be traded.