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Winnipeg Jets Reassign Dominic Toninato

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After nearly a month on the NHL roster, Dominic Toninato is heading to the AHL. The Winnipeg Jets announced they’ve reassigned Toninato to their AHL affiliate, the Manitoba Moose.

It’ll likely be his last stint with the Jets. Toninato has been on the active roster for 24 days, so if he spends six more days in Winnipeg, he’ll need to clear waivers again this season. The Jets are back down to 12 healthy forwards after the roster move thanks to Mason Appleton’s recent activation from injured reserve and Adam Lowry’s placement on it.

Winnipeg hardly used him during his recent call-up, as he went scoreless in four games and averaged 8:03 of ice time per game. Still, it’s reasonable to think the Jets will want another forward on their roster in case of additional injuries.

Toninato has the most NHL experience of any prospective forward call-ups but not the only one. Winnipeg could recall any of Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Mason Shaw, or Axel Jonsson-Fjällby should they want a depth forward familiar with the top level.

The Jets’ most pressing need is down the middle of the ice after Lowry’s injury giving Anderson-Dolan the inside track for a potential call-up. He’s spent the entire season with AHL Manitoba scoring two goals and two assists in 24 games.

Jets Interested In Jonathan Toews

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The Jets will be among the teams pursuing unrestricted free agent center Jonathan Toews if he attempts to continue his NHL career, general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff told Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic on Tuesday.

Toews, who turns 37 in April, told GQ last month he would give resuming his NHL career “his best shot,” and he hasn’t ultimately come to terms with his career being over. He hasn’t played in over a year and a half, missing the entirety of the 2020-21 season due to a severe flare-up of his Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) and a good chunk of 2022-23 while dealing with long COVID symptoms exacerbated by CIRS.

Unsigned since the 2023 offseason, the lifelong Blackhawk will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer with three Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe Trophy, a Selke Trophy, and four All-Star Game appearances on his résumé. He was also named one of the 100 greatest players in league history during its centennial season in 2017-18 and, for the Jets, would fill a growing hole down the middle.

Heading to his longtime Central Division rival would also mean suiting up for his hometown team. The first edition of the Jets were relocated to Phoenix when Toews was 8 years old, but he played youth hockey in Winnipeg until age 15, after which he headed south of the border to continue his development at American prep school Shattuck St. Mary’s before a two-year collegiate career at the University of North Dakota.

“It would be a real welcome conversation to see if there’s a fit both ways,” Cheveldayoff told LeBrun. “I think it would be a great story for his career, too. Not that he needs another story to [add to] his career. But I think he’s proud of his roots and would be an interesting fit.”

Whether Toews can factor into the Jets’ or any team’s picture for the 2024-25 campaign is still a gigantic question mark. LeBrun called it a “remote possibility” in an interview with TSN’s Jay Onrait on Wednesday, adding that Toews’ comments to GQ were more about “ramping up for next season.”

The Jets will still have some holes to fill at center for 2025-26. Adam Lowry and Mark Scheifele remain under contract and aren’t going anywhere, but the other half of their center complement, Rasmus Kupari and Vladislav Namestnikov. Coming off an extended absence with significant health concerns, Toews would likely be a Kupari replacement as Winnipeg’s fourth-line center if the two sides have productive conversations about a contract and fit.

Toews posted a career-worst -31 rating in his final season in Chicago, an understandable metric given his health issues and a paper-thin roster that yielded the league’s worst offense and a bottom-five defense. He still operated at a 50-point pace when healthy and won a career-best 63.1% of his faceoffs in 53 appearances, though, so regardless of other concerns about his overall game, he still likely carries value as a fourth-line faceoff specialist with adept two-way wingers.

Any Toews contract, regardless of if and where he signs, is almost certainly a one-year deal with a league-minimum base salary. Any additional value in the contract would almost certainly be through performance bonuses, which he’s eligible for as a 35+ UFA.

Appleton And Fleury Activated Off IR

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The Jets welcomed back a pair of players for their game tonight against Colorado.  The team announced (Twitter link) that winger Mason Appleton and defenseman Haydn Fleury have been activated off injured reserve.  To make room on the roster, center Adam Lowry, who’s set to miss the next few weeks, was moved to IR.

Appleton has missed the last three weeks with a lower-body injury.  The 29-year-old has been a capable depth contributor for several seasons now and has six goals and nine assists through 37 games.  As for Fleury, he missed a little more than three weeks with a knee issue.  The 28-year-old is in his first season with the Jets, picking up six assists in 25 games thus far.  Following the moves, Winnipeg’s roster now stands at the maximum of 23 players.

Jets Have Not Started Extension Talks With Any Pending Free Agents

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Generally, at this time of the year, teams will start discussions with at least some of their pending free agents to get a sense of what they might be looking for.  Sometimes, those discussions simply remain cursory while in others, they can lead to trades if an agreement isn’t reached by the trade deadline.

Last year, Winnipeg didn’t take that approach.  They ultimately held onto their pending free agents while adding to their roster and still managed to re-sign a key UFA when they re-upped Dylan DeMelo in the days leading up to free agency.  It appears they’re taking a similar approach this season.  In an intermission appearance on Monday (transcribed by Illegal Curve’s David Minuk), Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff indicated that there have been no negotiations yet between him and any of their pending free agents.

The list of players on expiring contracts is quite expansive.  Among the notable unrestricted free agents in July will be wingers Nikolaj Ehlers, Alex Iafallo, and Mason Appleton, center Vladislav Namestnikov, and defenseman Neal Pionk.  Meanwhile, winger Gabriel Vilardi, center Morgan Barron, and blueliner Dylan Samberg highlight the RFA class.  As things stand, Winnipeg has close to half their roster to try to keep in the fold.

At the moment, Winnipeg has a little over $52.6MM in commitments on the books for next season, per PuckPedia.  With the salary cap for next season still to be determined, Cheveldayoff doesn’t know yet how much money he’ll have to spend but it should be somewhere in the $40MM range.  That should be enough to keep or replace their core pieces on expiring deals and potentially add to that core group as well.

It’s also worth noting that the Jets are one of the top teams in the league.  Entering play tonight, Winnipeg sits atop the Western Conference with 65 points and they are only four behind Washington for the league lead in that department.  It’s fair to say they’re not going to be sellers so unless they’re fixed on avoiding the risk of letting one of their better rentals leaving for nothing in free agency, it’s not as if Cheveldayoff has to get contract talks going in the coming weeks.

Between now and the March 7th trade deadline, we’ll see plenty of activity pertaining to contract discussions and eventual extensions across the NHL.  But it appears Winnipeg won’t be particularly active on that front over the next six weeks.

Adam Lowry Out Week-To-Week With Upper-Body Injury

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The team atop the Western Conference will have their depth tested down the middle for the next few weeks. According to Murat Ates of The Athletic, Winnipeg Jets forward Adam Lowry has been designated as week-to-week with an upper-body injury.

Lowry suffered the injury in the team’s most recent game against the Utah Hockey Club after leaving the game after only skating in 5:18 of the action. The Jets will likely move Rasmus Kupari to the third line role between Nino Niederreiter and Cole Perfetti but any center combination will have difficulty replicating what the Jets’ captain has done this season.

The St. Louis, MO native has always been a natural bottom-six center, totalling over 120 hits each season of his career and maintaining a 51.4% success rate in the faceoff dot. His scoring has come up the last few campaigns as evidenced by his 0.43 point-per-game average in 2022-23 and 2023-24, and he was on pace for another career-high this year with a 0.54 PPG pace.

Unless another player succombs to injury, the Jets won’t have to place Lowry on injured reserve to add another player to the roster. Winnipeg only has 22 players on the roster at the time being so young prospects such as Brad Lambert or Nikita Chibrikov could get another look at NHL action in Lowry’s absence.

How the team performs in Lowry’s absence should answer multiple questions about the Jets’ deadline approach. Although he’s performed admirably throughout the season, it’s difficult to imagine a Stanley Cup conteder with Vladislav Namestnikov as their second line center. Winnipeg’s center depth will be even more tested without Lowry.

Tom McVie Passes Away

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Former NHL coach and longtime Bruins scout Tom McVie has passed away at age 89, the team announced Monday. McVie played 18 seasons with various minor league clubs from 1956 to 1974, then was the head coach of the Capitals, Jets, and Devils in parts of nine seasons from 1975 to 1992.

McVie began his NHL career behind the bench in a difficult situation, taking over Washington’s bench partway through their second season in the league. He was tasked with molding together one of the worst rosters in league history, one that had finished 8-67-5 in their expansion season and recorded only 11 wins in year two. While he understandably didn’t make the playoffs in any of his three seasons in Washington, he did get the team out of complete embarrassment territory and was behind the bench for a 24-win season in 1976-77.

After being let go by the Caps following the 1977-78 season, McVie headed to the World Hockey Association to take over Winnipeg’s bench midway through their final season before the NHL-WHA merger. He guided the Jets to an 11-8-0 record to end the season before upsetting both the Nordiques and Oilers to win the final Avco Cup championship, with a roster that included future NHL All-Stars Morris Lukowich and Kent Nilsson.

McVie stayed with Winnipeg post-merger but was fired 28 games into the 1980-81 campaign after the team compiled a 1-20-7 record. He then headed to the Devils organization, where he’d serve as an AHL coach for many years but got a few cracks at the NHL head coach gig in the 1983-84, 1990-91 and 1991-92 campaigns. Boston picked up McVie as an assistant coach the following season, and after transitioning through a few different roles, they made him a pro scout in 1998. He held that role until retiring following the 2019-20 season.

We at Pro Hockey Rumors send our condolences to McVie’s family, friends, and peers.

Jets May Not Prioritize Acquiring A Second Line Center

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The Winnipeg Jets may not prioritize a center at the NHL Trade Deadline if team captain Adam Lowry can continue his strong play at the position (as per Darren Dreger of TSN). Winnipeg has needed a second-line pivot for multiple seasons in a row now and was certainly prioritizing it before Lowry slid into the role out of necessity when Vladislav Namestnikov went down with a lower-body injury.

Now, Lowry’s sample size at the position is tiny at this point, having moved up for the previous two games. However, the early returns are terrific as Lowry, Nikolaj Ehlers and Alex Iafallo trio have been difficult to play against and have been offensive threats anytime they’ve been deployed as a unit. Lowry has a single assist in the two games since the move, but his overall play has benefitted both Ehlers and Iafallo.

It’s hard to envision Lowry becoming an offensive center at the age of 31, but his offensive game has been trending upward over the past few seasons. The St. Louis, Missouri native has enjoyed the two finest offensive seasons in the previous two years and appears poised to shatter his career high of 36 points this season.

It looks like Lowry and company will be allowed to see if they can put a stretch of play together that convinces Jets management to shift their hunt from a second-line center to perhaps the best overall forward that they can acquire. Or perhaps a third-line center to replace Lowry.

Winnipeg is in the conversation for the President’s Trophy and will likely be as aggressive as they were at last year’s Trade Deadline when they brought in center Sean Monahan from Montreal as well as Tyler Toffoli from New Jersey. The Jets have an aging core and with Ehlers contract status, they may only have one shot with a team as good as this one.

Winnipeg Jets Loan Dylan Coghlan To AHL

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It is becoming clear after today’s transactions that the Winnipeg Jets’ defensive roster is undergoing some refreshing changes. The team acquired defenseman Isaak Phillips from the Chicago Blackhawks earlier today and subsequently announced that they have loaned defenseman Dylan Coghlan to their AHL affiliate, the Manitoba Moose.

The move indicates defensemen Colin Miller and Haydn Fleury are nearing a return to full health giving Winnipeg eight healthy defensemen on the active roster. Factoring in today’s acquisition of Phillips, the moves have likely pushed Coghlan into a full-time AHL role unless injuries pile up in the NHL.

Coghlan cleared waivers on December 19th and given that he didn’t suit up in 10 games nor spend 30 days on the NHL roster he was waiver-exempt from today’s transaction. Winnipeg will maintain this flexibility with Coghlan assuming he spends the foreseeable future with AHL Manitoba.

He’s no stranger to AHL hockey, either. Coghlan nearly spent the entire 2023-24 campaign (aside from one game) in the AHL with the Springfield Thunderbirds and had the best professional season of his career. He scored 16 goals and 41 points in 61 games for the Thunderbirds tying for second in scoring on the team.

The Moose could certainly use his expertise. They’re on the outside looking in for a position in the 2025 Calder Cup playoffs sitting last in the Central Division with an 11-19-1-1 record through the first 32 games. Additionally, Manitoba’s offense is the worst in the league with a 2.28 GF/G making Coghlan’s offensive capabilities all the more important.

Jets Acquire Isaak Phillips From Blackhawks

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12:33 p.m.: Winnipeg made the trade official Wednesday afternoon, confirming it’s a one-for-one swap.

11:49 a.m.: The Jets are finalizing a trade to acquire defenseman Isaak Phillips from the Blackhawks in exchange for 21-year-old defense prospect Dmitri Kuzmin, Darren Dreger of TSN reports Wednesday.

Phillips, 23, is a 6’3″ lefty who Chicago drafted in the fifth round in 2020. He has 56 NHL games to his name already, but just three have come this season.

Aside from a few recalls in the first few weeks of the campaign, Phillips has spent 2024-25 entirely in the AHL with Rockford. Now in his fifth professional season, getting an early start thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down the OHL’s operations in 2020-21, he has eight points in 28 games on the farm with 54 PIMs and a plus-eight rating.

Phillips has an eye-popping -37 rating in his brief NHL career, although it’s hard to judge a still-raw defender on one of the league’s worst teams during that timeframe. Even still, relative to his Chicago teammates during that time, his possession numbers have been poor.

Chicago has controlled 42.4% of shot attempts with Phillips on the ice since his debut in 2021-22, 3.7% worse than their share without him. That’s a significant margin for a player whose primary calling is their defensive skills, although he has also provided 12 points, 47 blocks and 89 hits.

He still has upside, though, and Winnipeg was likely on the hunt for a slightly more experienced recall option than what they had in the system. The younger Kuzmin heads the other way, with the Blackhawks gaining a riskier but higher-ceiling talent in the swap.

The Jets drafted the Belarusian native 82nd overall in 2021, and he promptly came over to North America to suit up in the major junior ranks. The 5’10” lefty posted 103 points and a +18 rating in 122 games with the OHL’s Flint Firebirds across two seasons before turning pro with the Winnipeg organization in 2023.

Only this season has Kuzmin established himself as a semi-regular in the AHL. He split 2023-24 between the Jets’ AHL affiliate in their backyard and their ECHL affiliate in Norfolk, and his numbers didn’t pop off the page in either league.

This season, Kuzmin has been limited to a goal and three assists for four points with a minus-nine rating through 21 appearances. It’s clear things weren’t quite working out for the puck-mover in Winnipeg’s system, so he’ll get a fresh start in the Windy City with a year and a half left on his entry-level contract.

The swap won’t affect either team’s roster count or salary cap,, as both are actively on AHL assignments. However, the Jets will need to work with Phillips, who will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights at the end of the season.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Jets Activate Dylan Samberg From Injured Reserve

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Jan. 10: Samberg is indeed off IR and will play tonight against Los Angeles, the team said.

Jan. 9: Jets defenseman Dylan Samberg “should be in tomorrow” against the Kings after missing over six weeks with a foot fracture, head coach Scott Arniel told Murat Ates of The Athletic on Thursday. Star blue-liner Josh Morrissey is also expected to play after leaving Tuesday’s win over the Predators with a lower-body injury, said Arniel.

Samberg, 24, will need to come off injured reserve in order to play. Winnipeg has been rolling with an open spot on the active roster for a few days now, so that won’t be a complicated task.

A 2017 second-round pick, Samberg is in his third season as a full-timer on the Jets blue line. He’s seen an increased role compared to last season after Brenden Dillon signed with the Devils in free agency and Nate Schmidt’s contract was bought out, averaging 20:17 of ice time per game as opposed to 15:38 in 2023-24.

The 6’4″, 216-lb lefty has surpassed the departed Dillon and Dylan DeMelo as Winnipeg’s top penalty killer, averaging 2:32 per game while shorthanded. Samberg isn’t a complete non-factor offensively, either, posting three goals and three assists for six points in 21 appearances before his injury and 37 points through his first 177 NHL games with the Jets.

Samberg was stapled to Neal Pionk on Winnipeg’s second pairing before getting hurt, a role he’ll likely return to moving forward. The duo controlled 53.5% of expected goals and outscored opponents 8-4 when on the ice at 5-on-5 earlier this season, per MoneyPuck.

The Jets’ defense has been stretched thin in recent days, so the timing of Samberg’s return couldn’t be better. Haydn Fleury has been out with a lower-body injury for nearly two weeks, while Colin Miller will miss some time after sustaining a fractured larynx against the Red Wings last Saturday.

If Samberg picks up where he left off, he should be in line for a sharp raise this summer. He’s in the final season of a two-year, $2.8MM contract with a $1.4MM cap hit and will become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights at season’s end.

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