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Offseason Checklist: Winnipeg Jets

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The offseason has arrived for everyone with the Stanley Cup Final in the rearview.  Accordingly, it’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Winnipeg.

Expectations were mixed heading into the season for the Jets, who didn’t do a lot to reshape their roster after a 110-point season in 2023-24 while losing some key free agents as well. They managed to beat that record on the backs of continued dominance from their veterans, progress from young forwards, and an MVP-winning season from goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. Despite the best regular season in franchise history, though, they were dispatched by the Stars in the second round and have now won only two playoff series in the last seven years. General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff now needs to get them over the hump with the high-end core he’s already established.

Re-Sign RFAs

At first glance, the Jets are well-positioned to be major players in free agency this summer with $26.43MM in cap space, per PuckPedia. That’s because multiple key pieces are on expiring contracts, though. Two of them, top-line winger Gabriel Vilardi and top-four defenseman Dylan Samberg, are under team control and need new deals sooner rather than later so the Jets know how much of that cap space they can devote to free-agent pickups.

Vilardi is 25 years old and only has one season of team control remaining. That makes a bridge deal improbable and a long-term contract, even a max-term one, all the more appealing for a player who scored a career-high 27 goals and 61 points in 71 games this season. However, Vilardi’s lengthy injury history likely rules that out. Those 71 games played were also a career-high for the 2017 No. 11 overall pick, coming off his sixth NHL season. He’s missed 20-plus games in a year twice and has only cracked the 60-game mark twice as well. As such, the Jets are likely looking at a four-year commitment for Vilardi around $6.8MM per season, according to AFP Analytics. If he’s amenable to that price, they’d do well to get an agreement around there quickly to remove the threat of arbitration or an offer sheet.

Samberg, 26, is in a better position to command a longer-term deal. He’s just beginning his prime as a high-end second-pairing option with good defensive acumen, posting 20 points and a +34 rating in 60 games last season while averaging north of 21 minutes per game alongside Neal Pionk as Winnipeg’s No. 2 left-shot option behind Josh Morrissey. He’s shown linear development over his first few NHL seasons, and Winnipeg should be comfortable keeping him in his current role for the rest of the decade without much fuss. AFP Analytics projects a five-year deal with a cap hit in the $5.25MM range for him. Those projections still leave Winnipeg somewhere in the $14MM-$15MM range to spend on five roster spots this summer.

Backup Plan For Ehlers

The door isn’t closed on pending UFA winger Nikolaj Ehlers staying in Winnipeg, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to entice him with an eighth year on an extension. He’ll test the open market to see what’s out there for him, and the Jets will have to wait in line like everyone else.

That means Winnipeg might have to offer Ehlers a seven-year deal north of $8.5MM, potentially even in the $9MM range, per season to avoid him leaving for an environment with more opportunity for him in a first-line role or somewhere more financially advantageous for the 29-year-old Dane. He’s well-positioned to cash in on the heels of a 63-point season in 69 games, the former standing as one short of a career-high. If the Jets aren’t willing to push into that range to keep his services – a likely bet considering he continues to inexplicably average south of 16 minutes per game – they need to quickly identify targets in free agency who can either replace his output directly or help do so by committee.

Their cap flexibility means they should be able to do that relatively easily, but the Winnipeg market is routinely a hard sell to players who have multiple comparable options on the table. They’ll have to pick and choose their desired players and be quite aggressive with them. They don’t have prospects ready to step directly into Ehlers’ shoes, but perhaps someone like 2022 first-rounder Brad Lambert could at least step into a top-nine role and produce a 30-to-35-point rookie season (third-line fixture Mason Appleton is a pending UFA as well).

They could also opt to be aggressive in pursuit of a second-line center and keep Vladislav Namestnikov and Cole Perfetti, usually Ehlers’ center/winger combo in some capacity last year, as wingmen for a new middleman. There aren’t a ton of options out there, though, particularly after today’s Matt Duchene extension with the Stars. They’ll be trying to land some names in the next tier of UFA forwards like Brock Boeser, Jonathan Drouin, Mikael Granlund, and Pius Suter as a result, without much worry about what forward position they play.

Add Center Depth

Winnipeg’s relative weakness down the middle behind Mark Scheifele will be exacerbated to begin the season. Captain Adam Lowry will spend the first couple of months of the season on the shelf after offseason hip surgery, and frequent fourth-line center option Rasmus Kupari is off to spend the next two seasons in Switzerland.

The prospects of a big move are unlikely unless they’re willing to be aggressive on the trade front for someone like Wild center Marco Rossi, but they haven’t been mentioned in connection with his availability, and it’s exceedingly unlikely Minnesota would consider trading him to a divisional rival anyway. That leaves them with pursuing stopgap solutions like the aforementioned Granlund and Suter, who have top-six mobility, but they need another name or two for added bottom-six depth as well.

One of those could very well be Jonathan Toews. The former Blackhawks captain has spent the last couple of years out of the league as he deals with Chronic Immune Response Syndrome, but has been connected to Winnipeg ever since he publicized his desire for an NHL return last year. The interest is mutual, Cheveldayoff said in January, and it appears the Jets are on the Winnipeg native’s small list of finalists as he nears a decision in the coming days. At worst, he’s a fine fourth-line swap for Kupari.

They’d still like to add another name, presumably a sub-$1.5MM player like Sean Kuraly or Nico Sturm are expected to be, to help shoulder the load in the early going and take pressure off young players to take on center roles out of the gate. Even with a potential high-priced Ehlers contract, all of this should be doable under Winnipeg’s cap structure if they’re responsible with their RFA deals.

Connor Extension Talks

If the Jets aren’t careful, they’ll have back-to-back summers where big-name wingers could depart Winnipeg. Kyle Connor is entering the final year of his seven-year contract, which carries a team-friendly $7.14MM cap hit, and becomes eligible to sign an extension on July 1.

The 2024-25 First Team All-Star at left wing enters his contract year coming off a 41-goal showing, his second time hitting the 40-snipe mark. They have a strong appetite to get something done this summer and avoid the situation they find themselves at present with Ehlers. Considering the more bountiful success Connor has enjoyed in top-line minutes in Winnipeg, it’s likely he’d be more amenable to a long-term commitment.

Finding what the “right” number should be won’t be particularly tricky. He’s a slam-dunk 35-goal man with an extended run of success and even finished top 20 in Hart Trophy voting this season. There’s no question he’ll become Winnipeg’s new highest-paid player on an extension, one that AFP Analytics projects to be eight years at $12MM per season. Amid the rising cap and names like Mitch Marner expected to sniff $14MM on the open market this summer, the Jets shouldn’t have too many qualms about dealing out that big of a raise.

Image courtesy of Connor Hamilton-Imagn Images.

Chris Driedger Signs With KHL’s Traktor Chelyabinsk

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Pending UFA goaltender Chris Driedger signed a one-year contract with Russia’s Traktor Chelyabinsk of the Kontinental Hockey League on Tuesday, per a team release.

Driedger, 31, didn’t see NHL ice in 2024-25 for the second time in three seasons. The longtime No. 2/3 netminder was signed by the Panthers last offseason, his second tour of duty with the club, to serve as an insurance option behind backup Spencer Knight. He wasn’t needed due to the young netminder’s emergence, and even though Florida traded Knight to the Blackhawks in the Seth Jones deal, they acquired Vítek Vaněček from the Sharks to be their new backup shortly thereafter and didn’t need Driedger’s services. They then sent him to the Jets for Kaapo Kähkönen in a swap of experienced third-stringers at the trade deadline.

Between Florida’s and Winnipeg’s AHL affiliates, the Charlotte Checkers and Manitoba Moose, Driedger logged a highly underwhelming 3.03 GAA and .877 SV% with an 11-9-4 record in 25 appearances. It was the worst save percentage he’d put up over that large a sample of his entire career, both professional and junior. It’s unsurprising to see the 6’4″ netminder head overseas in search of career and financial stability as a result with an NHL offer far from guaranteed this summer.

For a brief period, Driedger was one of the better backups in the league. During his first stint with the Panthers, he had a 21-8-4 record, .931 SV%, 2.07 GAA, and four shutouts in 35 appearances in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons. While he was set to be an unrestricted free agent the following summer, the Kraken selected his signing rights in their expansion draft and promptly signed him to a three-year, $10.5MM deal. He dealt with frequent injuries in his first year though, and after managing a .899 SV% in 27 games in Seattle’s first season, he had ACL surgery that robbed him of most of the 2022-23 campaign. Upon returning, he was played almost exclusively with the Kraken’s AHL affiliate in Coachella Valley.

The Winnipeg native’s NHL career is now likely behind him. If that’s the case, the 2012 third-rounder wraps it up with 67 games to his name, during which he posted a 31-24-5 record, five shutouts, a 2.45 GAA, .917 SV%, and saved 16.0 goals above average. He also has a .910 SV% in 217 AHL games across 10 seasons.

Driedger will likely form a platoon in Chelyabinsk with 25-year-old Sergei Mylnikov, who posted a .920 SV% in 21 games for Traktor last year. Driedger is the replacement in Chelyabinsk for former NHLer Zachary Fucale, who spent the last two seasons with the club and led the KHL with nine shutouts this year but signed a two-year contract with Belarusian side Dinamo Minsk earlier this month.

Meanwhile, the Jets will look to add a different veteran depth option behind Connor Hellebuyck and Eric Comrie for 2025-26. They have youngsters Thomas Milic and Domenic DiVincentiis under NHL contract next year, but neither has the track record to confidently be penciled in as a No. 3 option/AHL starter.

Jets Sign Alfons Freij

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The Jets have signed one of their draft picks from last year, announcing that they’ve inked defenseman Alfons Freij to a three-year, entry-level deal.  The agreement will carry an AAV of $975K at the NHL level.

The 19-year-old was the fifth selection in the second round last June, going 37th overall following a strong season in Sweden’s junior system.  Freij predominantly played at the Under-20 level with Vaxjo and fared well offensively, notching 14 goals and 19 assists in 40 games.  He also played in five playoff games with Vaxjo’s Under-20 and Under-18 levels.

This season, Freij moved up a level, going to Sweden’s second-tier professional league, the Allsvenskan, where he played with IF Bjorkloven.  In 29 games with them, he had two goals and six assists while adding five points in five games with Bjorkloven’s Under-20 team as well.

Back in April, Freij signed a two-year deal with SHL Timra, positioning himself to be tested at a higher level once again next season.  This contract shouldn’t change that, as it’s quite likely that he will be loaned back overseas for 2025-26.  Assuming that happens, Freij’s contract is eligible to slide and, in that case, he’d still have three years left on his deal at this time next year.

Connor, Hellebuyck Earn 2024-25 All-Star Team Honors

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LW Kyle Connor (Jets) – Connor arguably completed the best season of his career, scoring 41 goals and 97 points, barely eclipsing his 93-point campaign in 2021-22 (although he did score 46 goals). Being the offensive leader for the Presidents Trophy-winning team made him a lock for All-Star Team honors, and he beat out Hagel by 100 votes.

G Connor Hellebuyck (Jets) – Despite tying with Kucherov with the second-most First Team votes, there was no clearer choice for the league’s top netminder than Hellebuyck. The American netminder secured the Vezina Trophy and Hart Memorial Trophy this season, leading the league in wins (47), GAA (2.00), shutouts(8), Goals Saved Above Average (41.6), and Adjusted Goals Against Average (2.13).

D Victor Hedman (Lightning) – The captain of the Lightning was also in a close vote, beating Winnipeg Jets’ Josh Morrissey by a few votes. There are arguments for both sides, but Hedman finished the year with more goals (15), assists (51), points (66), blocked shots (133), and CorsiFor% at even strength (53.5%) compared to Morrissey.

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Jets Reportedly Interested In Signing Jonathan Toews

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In today’s rendition of 32 Thoughts, Sportnet’s Elliotte Friedman gave a brief update on Jonathan Toews’s market as he attempts to make a comeback to the NHL. Friedman listed the Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Winnipeg Jets as likely suitors for the three-time Stanley Cup champion.

The Winnipeg Jets, Toews’s hometown team, makes more sense at face value. Assuming that Winnipeg is uninterested in removing captain Adam Lowry from the third line, Toews makes more sense than Morgan Barron for the team’s fourth-line center, especially if they move Barron to the wing to replace Brandon Tanev. Barron has been an underrated defensive forward throughout his time in Manitoba, starting more than 65.0% of his shifts in the defensive zone during his Jets tenure and maintaining a positive rating. Barron would be equally capable on the wing, and Toews could comparatively provide more offense with a higher career faceoff percentage.

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Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck Wins 2025 Vezina and Hart Trophies

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The NHL has announced that the Winnipeg Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck will take home both the 2025 Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender and the 2025 Hart Trophy as league MVP.

Hellebuyck beats out Los Angeles’ Darcy Kuemper and Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy for the Vezina award. This marks his third time winning the trophy. For the Hart, he finishes ahead of forwards Leon Draisaitl (Oilers) and Nikita Kucherov (Lightning). He becomes the first goalie since Carey Price in 2014-15 to win both awards.

Hellebuyck posted career-bests across the board this season, with a 2.00 goals-against-average, .925 save percentage, and 47 wins. He led the NHL in all three statistics among goaltenders with at least 35 games played.

Hellebuyck was at his home when he discovered he had won the Vezina. Surrounded by family and teammate Eric Comrie, the Hart Trophy was then brought out as an extra surprise.

“That moment was like putting a little cherry on top… I actually had no idea what this trophy looked like. Looking back, I’ll probably picture this day as one of the greatest of my career,” he said.

Hellebuyck had a monumental season, highlighted by posting the highest win percentage in NHL history. His 47 wins in 63 games equal out to 0.746 wins-per-game, defeating the previous record 0.727 posted by Braden Holtby in 2015-16. On a grand scale, Hellebuyck’s win total ranks third all-time behind Holtby (48 wins in 66 games, 2015-16) and Martin Brodeur (48 in 78, 2006-07). Hellebuyck also tied Bernie Parent and Roberto Luongo in wins, though he managed the feat in fewer games.

Hellebuyck joins Glenn Hall, Tony Esposito, and George Hainsworth as a three-time winner. Each one of the 12 other goaltenders to win at least three Vezina Trophies went on to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame – save for four-time winner Michel Larocque, backstop of the 1979 Stanley Cup-clinching Montreal Canadiens. Hellebuyck ran away with the Vezina voting, receiving all but one first place vote. MVP voting was much closer, but Hellebuyck edged out Draisaitl 1,346 to 1,209.

Hellebuyck’s prowess has rarely been questioned. He has posted a save percentage at or north of .920 in four of his last six seasons – only interrupted by a .916 and .910 in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, respectively. Every season, except for 2021-22, was coupled by a win percentage of at least 50 percent. That’s incredible consistency for an NHL starter – a fact that has earned Hellebuyck the third-highest cap hit ($8.5MM) among NHL goaltenders. He carries that price tag on a seven-year, $59.9MM contract signed with Winnipeg in 2023. That deal will carry Hellebuyck through his age-38 season in 2030-31.

How The Jets Can Replace Nikolaj Ehlers If He Leaves

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The Winnipeg Jets are in a pretty enviable position heading into this summer. They are coming off a Presidents’ Trophy and have 16 players signed for next season with nearly $26.5MM in available cap space (as per PuckPedia). Sure, they fell short of expectations in the playoffs, but overall, they are in good shape. That second-round playoff loss to the Dallas Stars isn’t the only somber moment the Jets could go through during the offseason, though, as forward Nikolaj Ehlers is set to hit unrestricted free agency. The Jets could afford to keep Ehlers in the fold and appear interested in doing so, but negotiations have been quiet, and the signs point to him leaving. If he does, Winnipeg will have to figure out a way to replace his production.

Replacing Ehlers’ contributions with one player will be nearly impossible for the Jets, as they aren’t likely to land a Mitch Marner-type player in free agency and will be very hard-pressed to find a comparable on the trade market. Ehlers’ speed and puck skills are tricky to replicate, particularly his contributions to Winnipeg’s transition game. Ehlers’ defensive play isn’t anything to write home about, but on offence, he is the complete package, possessing a heavy shot, excellent passing, and he can play with almost anyone. Outside of his poor defensive play, the big knock is that he can’t stay healthy, and that will undoubtedly be a concern for teams that are lining up to sign him this summer.

There is little doubt that the Jets will look far and wide to replace Ehlers and will likely look both internally and externally to try and navigate the loss. Internally, they could look to a Cole Perfetti, Nikita Chibrikov, and Brad Lambert as candidates who could step into more elevated roles in the Jets lineup. However, they would be hard-pressed to replace Ehlers’ numbers, and it would put a lot of pressure on some young players if they were tasked with replacing Ehlers’ production. Relying on young players to replace Ehlers is a risk, and it’s one that Winnipeg might want to avoid as they head into the summer.

If the Jets did want to swing for the fences and try to acquire one player to replace Ehlers, they could look to Buffalo and forward JJ Peterka. The 23-year-old is an RFA and should land a big contract this summer. The Jets probably couldn’t offer-sheet him, given that they traded away their second-round pick next year to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Luke Schenn trade, and Peterka would most likely fall in the $7,020,113 to $9,360,153 range on a contract going forward. That range for an offer sheet requires a first, second, and third-round pick as compensation, which is something Winnipeg simply can’t do.

They could look to re-acquire the pick, which is precisely what the St. Louis Blues did last summer with Pittsburgh after they had traded it along with Kevin Hayes in a salary dump. St. Louis made the trade so they could facilitate two offer sheets for defenseman Philip Broberg and forward Dylan Holloway. Given that Kyle Dubas is still the general manager in Pittsburgh and appears to be looking at the future, there is no doubt that Winnipeg could re-acquire their pick (for a cost) to make the move for Peterka. Nothing suggests they will do this, but these are the types of things the Jets will need to look at to replace Ehlers.

Suppose the Jets want to explore a trade for Peterka, which is the likelier route, then they might be in tough to top some of the other offers Buffalo would be fielding. Winnipeg has a middle-of-the-pack prospect system (ranked 15th in the NHL by Scott Wheeler of The Athletic) and probably couldn’t match what other teams offer. The Jets could trade Brayden Yager or Lambert as part of a package and do have their first-round pick for the next few years, but as mentioned earlier, they are lacking second-round picks in the subsequent three drafts.

The likeliest option for the Jets is to acquire another winger who may not possess the same level of skill as Ehlers but can fill the void at a lower cost, allowing the Jets to use the savings to address other areas. Bryan Rust in Pittsburgh would be an excellent fit for the Jets and will no longer have an NMC as of July 1. Rust is coming off a career year and would be a great leader for the Jets to add to their roster. Rust posted 31 goals and 34 assists in 71 games this past season and has two Stanley Cups to his name, as well as many moments of coming up big when games mattered the most. As far as concession plans, you can’t do much better than Rust.

Another Penguins forward who could be a fit is Rickard Rakell. The 32-year-old also had a career year, tallying 35 goals and 35 assists in 81 games. The Penguins like Rakell and were reportedly asking for quite a haul for him at the NHL Trade Deadline. If the Jets were able to pluck him or Rust from Pittsburgh, they would have done well to fill the void left by Ehlers’ departure.

Ultimately, whatever the Jets decide to do, it will likely involve acquiring another player and then hoping that several of their younger players can take the next step. The Jets are in a good spot to absorb the loss of a long-time player should it happen, and could look around the league to find a less skilled winger to fill in the void. Drake Batherson of the Ottawa Senators is another name that is out there, and he, too, would be a good fit for the Jets if they are looking at a trade.

Photo by James Carey Lauder-USA TODAY Sports

Jets Expected To Issue Qualifying Offer To Rasmus Kupari

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  • Earlier today, Winnipeg Jets forward Rasmus Kupari signed a two-year deal with the NL’s HC Lugano. If the Jets issue Kupari a qualifying offer before the June 30th deadline, they’ll retain his signing rights through the 2026-27 season, which Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press expects them to do. Although Kupari’s recent deal had an AAV of $1MM, the Jets will have to issue a $1.1MM qualifying offer to Kupari this summer, given the backloaded nature of his salary.
  • According to Mark Divver of the New England Hockey Journal, Matthew Desiderio is expected to join the Jets for their development camp. Desiderio has already committed to Brown University for the 2025-26 NCAA season. He’s coming off a solid year with the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints, scoring 14 goals and 38 points in 62 games.

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Jets’ Rasmus Kupari Signs Two-Year Deal With Switzerland’s HC Lugano

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Jets pending RFA center Rasmus Kupari has agreed to terms on a two-year deal with HC Lugano of Switzerland’s National League, the club announced today. While Kupari obviously does not intend to return to the NHL next season, Winnipeg can still retain his signing rights through the 2026-27 season with a qualifying offer before the June 30 deadline.

Kupari, acquired from the Kings in 2023’s Pierre-Luc Dubois trade, was a regular on the Jets’ fourth line this year until the trade deadline. The acquisition of Brandon Tanev from the Kraken pushed him down the depth chart, plus concussion symptoms limited his availability for a good chunk of the remaining regular season. He was cleared to return for Game 2 of Winnipeg’s first-round series against the Blues but remained out of the lineup for the entirety of the postseason.

All told, the 25-year-old played 87 games for the Jets over the last two regular seasons combined. He was a frequent healthy scratch in the first year of his tenure, although he did miss nearly two months with a shoulder issue as well, leading to just 28 appearances that year.

A first-round pick by Los Angeles in 2018, Kupari has rarely been elevated out of a fourth-line role during his five NHL seasons and hasn’t sniffed his offensive ceiling as a result. He had a career-high 15 points in 66 games with the Kings in his final year there before the trade. After signing a two-year, $2MM contract with the Jets following his acquisition, Kupari mustered a 5-4–9 scoring line with a minus-six rating over the life of the deal while averaging just 9:54 of ice time per game.

What Kupari lacks in offensive production, he’s somewhat compensated for in other areas of his game. He’s averaged 97 hits per 82 games over his career, wins over 50% of his faceoffs, and had good possession metrics in heavy defensive deployment in 2024-25 (49.0 CF%, 50.0 xGF%, 76.1 dZS%) at even strength.

That’s not Kupari’s calling card, though. He’s flirted with the point per game mark in the AHL before and had 33 points in 43 games for Kärpät in Finland’s top league back in 2018-19 before coming over to North America. It’s sensible that he’d look for more opportunity than he’ll realistically land in Winnipeg or anywhere else in the NHL next season by heading back to Europe.

A two-year deal with Lugano will walk Kupari to unrestricted free agent status in the 2027 offseason unless the Jets reach a deal to bring him back to the NHL before July 1 of that year. He was owed a $1.1MM QO this summer, though, making him a legitimate non-tender candidate given his limited deployment.

Image courtesy of James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images.

Islanders, Jets Explored Brock Nelson Trade At Deadline

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The New York Islanders landed a Trade Deadline steal when they sent aging veteran Brock Nelson to the Colorado Avalanche for top prospect Calum Ritchie, defenseman Oliver Kylington, and draft picks in the 2026 first-round and 2028 third-round. But new reports have shared that New York could’ve found a jackpot return even if their offer with Colorado fell through. Marco D’Amico of Responsible Gaming reports that the Winnipeg Jets were also aggressive in their pursuit of acquiring Nelson – and were ready to offer a package very similar to Colorado’s. D’Amico specifies that Winnipeg would have offered up one of Brad Lambert, Brayden Yager, or Colby Barlow in the return, in addition to future draft capital.

New York can rest happy with how things ended up, but acquiring one of Winnipeg’s top names would have been just as lucrative. All three prospects offer their own upside, led by 2023 14th-overall pick Brayden Yager, who scored 82 points in just 54 WHL games this season. He also chipped in 14 points in 16 playoff games – but fell short of the championship run he went on with the Moose Jaw Warriors last season. Yager is likely headed for the pros next season, and could rapidly rise up Winnipeg’s depth chart with a hot start to his career.

Lambert is another top prospect, though expectations around him have cooled slightly after he scored 35 points in 61 AHL games this season – 20 fewer than he managed in 64 games last year. Lambert’s a dynamic and skilled forward, but is still a bit small for pro competition. He offers plenty of upside, but will need to first rediscover the scoring he posted last year.

Barlow is perhaps the most unheralded of the bunch after wrapping up his age-20 season in the OHL. He scored 32 goals and 61 points in 62 games this year. That mark continued his quiet slide down the OHL leaderboard – after he posted 40 goals and 58 points in 50 games last year, and 46 goals and 79 points in 59 games of his draft year in 2022-23. But Barlow intercut that with three points in three AHL games at the end of last season, and could translate as a hard-nosed scorer with pro-level physicality.

But while all three prospects carry reason for upside and reason for question, D’Amico specified that a deal with the Jets fell through because Nelson was unwilling to waive his no-trade clause to head to Canada. He instead waived it to land in Colorado, earning the Islanders the rights to Ritchie just a few months after he made the NHL roster directly out of training camp. Ritchie played in seven games and scored his first NHL goal before returning to the OHL for a dominant season. He posted 70 points in 47 regular season games, and 25 points in 21 playoff games, while serving as the clear-cut top center on an Oshawa Generals lineup that made it all the way to the OHL Championship.

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