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Jets Notes: Perfetti, Ehlers, Yager

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The Jets will likely ink RFA center Cole Perfetti to a bridge deal to conclude contract negotiations this summer, writes Ken Wiebe of The Winnipeg Free Press. Perfetti is arguably the top RFA center left on the market, although he spent a good chunk of last season on the wing after being bumped from the No. 2 center spot for Vladislav Namestnikov and later Sean Monahan. The 2020 10th overall pick is coming off his entry-level contract and set career highs with 19 goals and 38 points in his platform season.

Winnipeg will be looking for more out of the 22-year-old next season after losing Monahan and a few other depth forward pieces to free agency. But while he’s been an effective depth presence, he hasn’t been able to demonstrate his ceiling as an everyday top-six forward with much consistency to date. This season could be transformative for Perfetti, who has a chance to reclaim that second-line spot down the middle and prove himself as a capable secondary option behind Mark Scheifele. That could lead to the two sides agreeing on a one-year deal to get Perfetti signed before training camp and resuming discussions on a longer-term extension to begin with the 2025-26 season, Wiebe posits.

Turning to another notable top-six piece for the Jets, it’s been relatively quiet on the Nikolaj Ehlers front. Murat Ates of The Athletic reported back in May that Winnipeg would explore trading the winger entering the final season of his contract. A month later, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta said that Ehlers wasn’t interested in beginning extension talks with the club and intended to test free agency next summer, barring a trade. The Hurricanes were believed to be in pursuit of Ehlers, potentially in a swap for then-unsigned RFA Martin Necas, but that deal never came to fruition.

But with a different coaching regime led by Scott Arniel, The Winnipeg Free Press’ Mike McIntyre wonders if there may be a path toward an Ehlers extension after all. As McIntyre points out, both Arniel and general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff have been public in their praise of Ehlers’ play this summer, and it’s likely he’ll see an uptick on the sub-16 minutes per game of ice time he’s seen the last couple of years. The 28-year-old Dane is coming off a 25-goal, 61-point campaign in 2023-24 – a down year by his standards. But the organization’s messaging may have made Ehlers more open to sticking around, and McIntyre believes they’re still trying to get him signed before the start of the season.

Could this all get resolved before the season begins, the way Connor Hellebuyck and Scheifele’s situations did last year? I wouldn’t rule that out.

Pivoting back to that second-line center vacancy, there are a few dark horses to land the job come opening night outside of Namestnikov and Perfetti. Wiebe believes 2023 14th overall pick Brayden Yager, acquired from the Penguins last week, will get a nine-game trial in the role before being returned to the Western Hockey League’s Moose Jaw Warriors for the remainder of the campaign.

“It wouldn’t shock me to see him get a chance in that role before a final decision is made,” Wiebe said of Yager. “He’s still going to need an excellent training camp in order to force his way into this discussion, given the aforementioned contenders. But Yager is someone who could do just that and earn himself an extended look, given the skill set he brings to the table and his ability to play a dependable two-way game to go along with his talent, vision and heavy shot.”

Yager, 19, had 95 points in 57 games for the Warriors last year. The 5’11”, 179-lb pivot could at least provide a taste of things to come, and depending on his early returns, could influence whether the Jets want to put resources into developing Perfetti as a center or winger long-term.

Evening Notes: Jagr, Baertschi, Necas

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Hockey legend Jaromir Jagr has hit a lull in his off-season prep, announcing in an Instagram post that he’s suffered a torn hamstring. He’ll now be out for three-to-six weeks, adding that the injury was likely a result of overtraining, which team physio Pavel Kolar warned him against. In a quote translated from Czech by Derek O’Brien of The Hockey News, Jagr said, “When I talked to the physiotherapist Pavel Kolář about the fact that I would like to properly train, he warned me not to do anything that my body is not used to. Of course, I didn’t listen to him… I went for a run. Not the sprints I used to do uphill, but normally straight. But I put weights on my ankles and tore my hamstring.”

Jagr, a partial owner of Kladno, will now miss the team’s remaining four pre-season games and could be out for the start of the Czech Extraliga season on Sep. 18. Kladno has a game roughly every other day from there on out, eating into Jagr’s goal to play in every Extraliga game this season. The inevitable Hall-of-Fame winger has stayed productive into his 50s, scoring 18 points across his last 31 Extraliga games, dating back to 2022. He’s never shown any reason for doubt, and even through a hamstring injury, he hopes to continue a productive playing career in Kladno as soon as possible.

Other quick notes from around the NHL:

  • Former Vancouver Canucks winger Sven Baertschi has joined the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks as an assistant coach, shares Ryan Pike of Flames Nation. Baertschi spent two years with the Winterhawks in 2010 and 2011, ultimately scoring a dazzling 240 points in 156 games with the club. That was enough to motivate the Calgary Flames to select Baertschi with the 13th overall selection in the 2011 NHL Draft, though he never managed to live up to that precedent. His career year came with Vancouver in 2016-17, when he posted 18 goals and 35 points in 68 games. Baertschi finished his NHL career with 138 points in 292 games, playing in parts of 10 seasons. That’s a hockey career to be proud of – meager scoring or not – and Baertschi will now look to carry his experience back to the juniors team that helmed his early career.
  • Plenty of teams expressed interest in former top trade piece and recent Hurricanes re-signee Martin Necas, shares Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman in the latest written 32 Thoughts. Among the interested parties were the Winnipeg Jets and Columbus Blue Jackets, though Necas was ultimately swayed to stay in Carolina thanks to the support of his teammates off the ice. Necas will now look to make the most of his two-year contract after posting 71 and 53 points in the last two seasons, respectively. That’s strong production, and Necas should earn an impressive contract when he becomes an unrestricted free agent, pending any collapse over the next two years.

Markus Loponen Officially Signs With Victoria

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  • Jets prospect Markus Loponen has, as expected, signed a contract with WHL Victoria, per a team release. The 18-year-old forward was a fifth-round pick by Winnipeg two months ago, going 155th overall.  Loponen had 25 goals and 29 assists in 45 games last season for Karpat’s under-20 team, resulting in him being picked in the first round of the CHL Import Draft this summer.  Loponen requested and was granted his release by Karpat earlier this week, paving the way for him to join the Royals.

Cheveldayoff: Jets Never Received Reason For Rutger McGroarty’s Unwillingness To Sign

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Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff spoke to members of the media yesterday, including Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press, noting that Rutger McGroarty’s camp never disclosed why the 2022 first-round pick was unwilling to sign in Winnipeg despite being asked by the GM multiple times.

“We were at the draft combines and got a text from his agent (Pat Brisson) that he wanted to meet… he informed us that Rutger had said that he didn’t intend to sign,” Cheveldayoff said (via Connor Hrabchak of The Hockey Writers). “That’s the first inkling that we got that there was nothing that was going to come to fruition there. We sat down and asked the agent why, and he said he didn’t have an answer. He didn’t have a reason. I went through a litany of questions to the agent to see – was it player development? Was it that we didn’t burn a year [off his entry-level contract]? He said no, no, no, it just didn’t feel right.”

When the news of McGroarty’s desired exit from Winnipeg first broke before the draft, a league source told Murat Ates of The Athletic that the player felt “his path to the NHL is best suited in another organization.” Ates wrote that the Jets felt the AHL was the best place for McGroarty to play in 2024-25, an outcome he wasn’t interested in. Thus, he returned to the University of Michigan for his junior season. However, he’ll reverse that decision and turn pro after signing his entry-level contract with the Penguins immediately following yesterday’s trade.

But Cheveldayoff’s transparency about his conversations with Brisson indicates this wasn’t a new rift between McGroarty and the Jets, even if it wasn’t brought up until recently. Both Brisson and McGroarty said his hesitations about signing with Winnipeg stemmed from his first development camp showing with the club, Cheveldayoff relayed.

The Jets can be thankful that McGroarty’s stellar play in Ann Arbor the last two seasons helped them get a fair return for his services. A strong all-around forward who can play both center and left wing, he’s coming off a banner 2023-24 campaign that saw him finish second on the Wolverines in scoring with 52 points (16 goals, 36 assists) in 36 games with a +17 rating. He also captained the United States at the World Junior Championship, scoring five goals and four assists for nine points in seven games to lead the Americans to a gold medal.

One of McGroarty’s under-discussed collegiate achievements was his ability to maintain a physical style of play without harming his team by racking up penalty minutes. The Nebraska native racked up 65 PIMs in 54 games during his draft year with the U.S. National U18 Development Team but logged just 24 PIMs in 75 games over his two years in Michigan.

He’s a tough loss, but the Jets recouped another blue-chip forward prospect in Brayden Yager to take his place. He’s not quite as pro-ready as McGroarty, but the 19-year-old could answer Winnipeg’s long-time hole at the second-line center position as soon as 2025-26. After posting 95 points in 57 games with the Western Hockey League’s Moose Jaw Warriors and leading them to their first WHL championship last year, he’ll likely get a long look in the role during training camp and could end up on the opening night roster. A nine-game trial to avoid burning the first year of his entry-level contract is possible for Yager, who needs to be returned to Moose Jaw if he’s not on the NHL roster this season.

Notably, Winnipeg also lands a player eager to return to his Central Canada home. “You see the fan base in Winnipeg, it’s pretty special,” Yager, a Saskatchewan native, told team color analyst Mitchell Clinton. “Especially in the playoffs – the whiteout and everything – it’s crazy. So I’m super excited.”

Snapshots: Swayman, Brodzinski, Yager

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Boston Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman is at risk of entering September without a contract for the season. But team president and NHL Hall of Famer Cam Neely isn’t bothered by negotiations dragging on. In an appearance on The Rich Shertenlieb Show, Neely said, “Something will get done. There’s no question. I mean, not every negotiation is as smooth as you’d like it. I know our fan base would certainly love to have something done by now. But I’m fully confident that both sides will come to an agreement before too long here.”

Swayman has expressed confidence of his own that a deal will get done – making the ongoing holdout a bit surprising. The Bruins carry $8.64MM in projected cap space, per PuckPedia, and a full roster signed otherwise. That should be plenty of budget to sign Swayman to, at least, a short-term deal – perhaps an indication that contract details like signing bonuses are the impeding factor. Swayman has had a stellar NHL career through three seasons, posting a .919 save percentage in 132 games, but he’s yet to exceed 45 starts in a single season. That’s set to change in a big way with Linus Ullmark now in Ottawa – and if Swayman can withstand the barrage is yet to be seen.

Other notes from around the league:

  • College free agent Bryce Brodzinski has signed a one-year deal with the AHL’s Ontario Reign. The Philadelphia Flyers drafted Brodzinski in the seventh round of the 2019 NHL Draft, but didn’t sign before August 1, 2024 deadline – pushing him into free agency after a five-year career at the University of Minnesota. Brodzisnki scored more-and-more in every season, ultimately posting a career-high 36 points in 39 games this year. He’ll look to continue growing next year, stepping into a competitive Ontario lineup where he’ll battle Los Angeles Kings prospects Martin Chromiak, Koehn Ziemmer, and Kaleb Lawrence for ice time on the wings.
  • The newest top Winnipeg Jets prospect, Brayden Yager, will either play in the NHL or CHL this season Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff shares with The Athletic’s Murat Ates. Yager remains eligible for the NHL-CHL agreement by just four days – keeping him eligible to return to the Moose Jaw Warriors, where he won a WHL championship last season. Yager played a pivotal role in the ring-winning year, scoring a career-high 35 goals and 95 points in 57 regular-season games and 27 points in 20 playoff games. He’s lived up to his 14th-overall standing thus far, and will have now receive a chance to break into the next step as part of a new team.

Penguins, Jets Swap Rutger McGroarty And Brayden Yager

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1:45 PM: The Winnipeg Jets have confirmed the one-for-one swap.

11:00 AM: The Pittsburgh Penguins may have found their solution to who will play on a line with Sidney Crosby. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman is reporting the organization is close to acquiring forward prospect Rutger McGroarty from the Winnipeg Jets. A few moments later, Friedman additionally reported the Penguins would be sending prospect Brayden Yager back to Winnipeg.

McGroarty immediately becomes the best forward prospect in the Penguins organization with Yager’s exit and has a legitimate opportunity to crack the roster next season. Although nothing was purposefully made public, McGroarty reportedly sought a trade out of Winnipeg in late June for a more readily available opportunity at the NHL level.

Shortly after being acquired by the organization, the Penguins signed McGroarty to his entry-level contract meaning his time at the University of Michigan has concluded. The three-year deal will pay McGroarty a salary of $855K at the NHL level with a signing bonus of $50K and performance ’A’ bonuses up to $500K each year of the deal.

It’s difficult to argue with McGroarty on being NHL-ready as he recently finished ninth in NCAA scoring during the 2023-24 season with 16 goals and 52 points in 36 games. He was also sensational during the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championships for Team USA as he scored five goals and nine points in seven tournament contests while captaining his team to a gold medal finish for the first time since 2021.

If the Penguins graduate McGroarty to the NHL for the 2024-25 campaign, he fills an obvious need on Crosby’s wing. Playing primarily against Big Ten opponents during his time in the NCAA, McGroarty developed an innate skill to read opposing defenses and show off his elite playmaking abilities in the offensive zone. He’s not satisfied without the puck either, as he is a relentless forechecker with a combination of skill and physical play.

His forechecking abilities make him an ideal candidate to put on a line with Crosby or Evgeni Malkin, as both players thrive with the puck on their sticks. McGroarty’s style of play should open up plenty of space for the two Pittsburgh legends but he also has a good enough shot to finish the play himself.

Yager was selected exactly one year after McGroarty with the 14th overall selection of the 2023 NHL Draft. He spent last season with the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors collecting 35 goals and 95 points in 57 games as the team’s assistant captain. He further cemented his legacy with the Moose Jaw program with an incredible playoff performance with 11 goals and 27 points in 20 games en route to becoming champions of the WHL.

Yager also had the opportunity to represent Team Canada at the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championships and scored five points in five games for the Canadians but unfortunately failed to medal. It appeared as if Yager may have an outside chance of making Pittsburgh’s roster for the 2024-25 campaign with the team signing him to his entry-level contract only a month ago. Now, Yager will attempt to crack Winnipeg’s roster in training camp.

The young Saskatoon native has inherent value as a right-handed shot center who also brings more defensive awareness to his game in comparison to McGroarty. If the organization is not content with giving Cole Perfetti minutes down the middle of the ice on the team’s second line, Yager provides a confident long-term answer at center behind Mark Scheifele.

Markus Loponen To Play In WHL This Season

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  • Jets prospect Markus Loponen requested and was granted a contract termination from his deal with Karpat, per a team release from the Finnish squad. The 18-year-old was a fifth-round pick back in June, going 155th overall.  Loponen had 25 goals and 29 assists in 45 games last season on Karpat’s under-20 team, earning him a first-round selection by Victoria in the CHL Import Draft this summer.  Loponen will now suit up for the Royals this season.

Morning Notes: Kadri, Grebyonkin, Pickering

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The Jets’ wish list at last season’s trade deadline had second-line center written atop it, likely in all caps. Looking at the state of their roster now, a 2C will likely be a deadline priority again after they failed to keep 2024’s stopgap solution, Sean Monahan, from reaching unrestricted free agency. In an early look at potential mid-season trade candidates to fill the void, Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press profiles Flames pivot Nazem Kadri as a longer-term solution to provide stability down the middle behind Mark Scheifele.

Kadri, who turns 34 in October, is on the block to some degree. A report from David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period in June indicated Calgary general manager Craig Conroy was at least exploring the market for the center, who still has five years left on his contract at a $7MM cap hit.

It’s a hefty price tag, but it’s one Kadri lived up to last season after a mediocre first campaign in Alberta the year before. He took over as the Flames’ top center and arguably their top forward overall, leading them in assists (46), points (75) and shots on goal (277). It was one of the best seasons of his career, save for the 87-point season with the Avalanche in 2021-22 that landed him his payday from the Flames on the free agent market the following summer.

That price tag, even with some degree of salary retention by the Flames, likely limits the Jets from pouncing this offseason. They do have $5.78MM in projected cap space, per PuckPedia, but a chunk of that is set aside for a new deal for RFA forward Cole Perfetti, who will be one of a few internal options at second-line center to start this season. A move would be easier to execute after they’ve had a few months during the season to accumulate cap space.

Wiebe writes that Winnipeg has had interest in Kadri before, dating back to when he was traded from the Maple Leafs to Colorado in 2019. Any move hinges on the interest being mutual, given he’s got a no-movement clause through 2025-26.

Other tidbits from around the league to close out the week:

  • Maple Leafs prospect Nikita Grebyonkin is still recovering from a lower-body injury as he prepares for his first training camp with the club, he tells Daria Tuboltseva of Responsible Gambling. Grebyonkin, 21, spent last season with Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the Kontinental Hockey League and played through the injury during their playoff run, which took them to the summit of Russian hockey with the franchise’s third Gagarin Cup win. The 2022 fifth-round pick signed his entry-level contract following the conclusion of the KHL final and has been in the Toronto area since. The 6’2″, 192-lb winger will be a dark horse to crack the Maple Leafs’ opening night roster after finishing second on Magnitogorsk in scoring last year with 41 points in 67 games.
  • Penguins 2022 first-rounder Owen Pickering is hoping to get a shot with the team out of camp ahead of his first full professional season, relays Wes Crosby of NHL.com. The towering 6’5″ 20-year-old, who says he’s put on weight this summer and is up to 200 lbs, faces an uphill battle to compete with depth players like Sebastian Aho, Ryan Shea, and Jack St. Ivany for roster spots. Pickering, a promising two-way threat, captained the Western Hockey League’s Swift Current Broncos last season and led their blue line with seven goals, 39 assists and 46 points in 59 games. He’s been named to the league’s Central Division First All-Star Team in back-to-back years.

Jets Hoping OQT Will Be A Jumpstart For Ehlers Heading Into Contract Year

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With Olympic Qualifying Tournaments beginning at the end of the month, several teams will have decisions to make about allowing their players to participate in the event just before training camps get underway.  Jets head coach Scott Arniel told Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun that Nikolaj Ehlers will indeed suit up for Denmark in their tournament, noting their hope is that this will serve as a jumpstart heading into camp.  Ehlers has been frequently speculated as a possible trade candidate in recent months and he’s coming into the final season of his seven-year, $42MM contract signed back in 2017.  After putting up the second-highest point total of his career last season with 61, Ehlers will be looking for another big performance to bolster his value ahead of his first crack at unrestricted free agency.

Winnipeg Hoping To Get More From Younger Players

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While at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup in Edmonton, Alberta earlier today, the general manager of the Winnipeg Jets, Kevin Cheveldayoff spoke very candidly about the younger players on the roster (Article Link). According to TSN, Cheveldayoff said, “The ball’s in their court. If you’re a young player in our organization right now, it’s all in front of you, there for the taking“.

The only GM in team history wasn’t speaking generally either as he specifically called out Logan Stanley, Ville Heinola, Brad Lambert, Nikita Chibrikov, and Cole Perfetti. The quote is significant given that new head coach Scott Arniel is instituting a major change in philosophy to the Jets’ organization.

Winnipeg has long been known to slow-play prospects to the professional level. Most quality prospects in the organization spend several years in the minor or junior levels before finally being graduated to the NHL where they will sometimes sit in depth roles for much of the season.

Heinola, Lambert, and Chibrikov spent all of last year (besides one game a piece for the latter two) in the minor leagues. The Jets kept an impressively healthy blue line through the 2023-24 regular season which prohibited Heinola from receiving a call-up. With several key players leaving through buyouts and free agency this summer — a strong training camp performance could earn them a full-time role at the NHL level.

The quote from Cheveldayoff is a bit more interesting when considering the career trajectories of both Perfetti and Stanley. Perfetti has been a full-time member of the Jets for two years now and played in 71 games last year. It was his most productive season to date as he scored 19 goals and 38 points in total.

He was still tremendously underutilized in the forward group as he averaged 13:35 of ice time each night which ranked 12th on the team for forwards with 15 or more games played. Perfetti has arguably already worked his way into a top-six role in Winnipeg and it will be intriguing to see how Arniel utilizes him this season.

Stanley, on the other hand, could be a bit jealous of Perfetti’s situation with the team. The 6’7″ defenseman went from averaging 15:39 of ice time over 58 games in 2021-22 to averaging 13:46 of ice time over 25 games this past season. Stanley has already proven himself as an adequate shutdown defenseman and could play himself into the former role of Nate Schmidt.

This fate felt inevitable for the Jets. Arniel is now in charge of plugging the holes left by Schmidt, Sean Monahan, Tyler Toffoli, and potentially Nikolaj Ehlers. If Winnipeg hopes to compete in a rugged Central Division, they must give their young players more responsibility.

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