October 27, 2026
October 27, 2026
Jets’ 2025-26 Season: From Presidents’ Trophy to Missing the Playoffs
The Jets’ 2025-26 season delivered one of the steepest falls in modern NHL history. Twelve months after collecting the Presidents’ Trophy, Winnipeg finished seventh in the Central Division and watched the postseason from home. The year still produced a franchise scoring record, an Olympic hero, and a spring charge that briefly revived belief. None of it could erase a winter that broke the season apart.
Winnipeg entered the fall carrying the weight of its own success. The 2024-25 club had posted the best record in the league, and Connor Hellebuyck had swept the Hart, Vezina, and Jennings trophies. A second-round exit had stung, but the core remained intact under head coach Scott Arniel and captain Adam Lowry.
The offseason, however, cost the Jets a key piece. Nikolaj Ehlers left for Carolina in free agency, and Mason Appleton and Brandon Tanev also departed. General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff responded with a surprising headline signing. Jonathan Toews, the three-time Stanley Cup champion from Winnipeg, ended a two-year absence from the NHL to come home on a one-year deal. Gustav Nyquist and Tanner Pearson arrived as veteran depth.
Cheveldayoff also locked down the foundation. Gabriel Vilardi signed a six-year extension, and Kyle Connor agreed to an eight-year deal on the eve of opening night. Lowry followed with a five-year extension in November. The message was clear: this group would be given every chance to win together.
The opener offered a warning. Dallas edged Winnipeg 5-4 on October 9, and the Jets immediately looked like a team still searching for Ehlers’ speed. Then they seized the month anyway. A 6-3 win over Chicago on October 30 capped an 8-3-0 October and restored the swagger of the year before.
The cracks were already forming beneath that record. Defenseman Dylan Samberg had been lost to injury in the preseason, and depth scoring came in short bursts. November brought a 5-8-0 slide that exposed how thin the lineup had become.
The blow that mattered most landed in mid-November. Hellebuyck played on November 15 in Calgary, then went to injured reserve and underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on November 22. Eric Comrie took over a crease that had masked the team’s flaws for years.
Hellebuyck returned on December 13 against Washington and made 24 saves in a 5-1 win, with Vilardi scoring twice. His comeback was chronicled in NHL.com’s recap of his return. The relief did not last. Winnipeg went 2-8-4 in December, its worst month of the year.
The skid that defined the Jets’ 2025-26 season stretched from December into the new year. Game after game, Winnipeg stayed close and still found ways to lose. The streak reached 11 games, a franchise record, with a 0-7-4 mark across that span. A 4-3 loss in Edmonton on January 8 extended the misery.
The next night, the Jets finally broke through. Vladislav Namestnikov scored 91 seconds into the game against Los Angeles, and Toews added a goal in the second period. Scheifele scored twice in the third, and Comrie made 23 saves in a 5-1 victory, as detailed in the NHL.com account of the streak-ending win. Winnipeg reeled off four straight wins afterward, but the hole was already deep at 16-22-5.
Hellebuyck saved his finest performance of the year for the biggest stage in hockey. The United States met Canada in the gold medal game at the Milan Cortina Olympics on February 22. Canada pressed for long stretches, including 92 seconds of five-on-three play.
Hellebuyck held on through all of it. He stopped Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini on breakaways and made a behind-the-back stick save on a wide-open Devon Toews. He finished with 41 saves, and Jack Hughes won it 2-1 in overtime. It was the first American men’s Olympic hockey gold since 1980.
Winnipeg reached the break at 22-26-8, 11 points behind Anaheim for the second wild card. Cheveldayoff treated the standings as reality. On March 6, he sent Luke Schenn and Logan Stanley to Buffalo for Jacob Bryson, Isak Rosén, a conditional fourth-round pick, and a 2027 second-round pick. Pearson followed to Buffalo for a seventh-round selection.
The moves opened space for younger players. Elias Salmonsson, Brad Lambert, Parker Ford, Danny Zhilkin, Nikita Chibrikov, and Brayden Yager all received NHL looks. The roster grew faster, and the results surprised everyone.
Left for dead in February, the Jets clawed their way back into contention. They went 9-4-3 in March and transformed into a team that won tight games. Before the break, Winnipeg had gone 8-11-8 in one-goal contests. Afterward, it went 6-1-4 in those games through the end of March.
The peak came on March 31 in Chicago. Connor scored in overtime for a 4-3 win, pulling Winnipeg within one point of a playoff spot. NHL.com’s look at the late-season push captured a team that had climbed from seven games under .500 to two games over. Eight games remained, and only three were at home.
The comeback stalled at the worst possible moment. Winnipeg won just three of its last eight games, and the road schedule proved too heavy. On April 13 in Las Vegas, the Golden Knights built an early lead and rolled to a 6-2 win.
That night carried both triumph and heartbreak. Scheifele assisted on Vilardi’s 30th goal for his 100th point, then scored for his 101st. That point broke the franchise record of 100 set by Marian Hossa with the 2006-07 Atlanta Thrashers. Minutes later, a Los Angeles win over Seattle mathematically eliminated the Jets, as Global News reported from the loss in Vegas.
The finale on April 16 brought a 6-1 home loss to San Jose. Winnipeg finished 35-35-12 with 82 points, seventh in the Central and 12th in the West. It became only the fifth defending Presidents’ Trophy winner to miss the playoffs.
Scheifele built the finest season of his career at age 33. He dressed in all 82 games and finished with 36 goals, 67 assists, and 103 points. His previous best had been 87 points. He became the first player of the Jets’ modern era to reach 100 points, a milestone covered in The Hockey Writers’ breakdown of his century mark.
Connor led the team with 39 goals and added 92 points, nearly matching his 97-point campaign of the year before. Vilardi delivered a career year with 30 goals and 69 points. Josh Morrissey anchored the blue line with 14 goals and 55 points in 77 games.
Toews gave the season its emotional thread. He played all 82 games and scored 11 goals after two years away from the sport. In June, he announced his retirement after one final season in his hometown.
Hellebuyck’s numbers told the other side of the story. He went 23-23-11 with a 2.86 goals-against average, an .895 save percentage, and no shutouts.
The Jets’ 2025-26 season will be remembered as the year the window began to close. A Presidents’ Trophy core lost a prime year to injuries, thin depth, and an 11-game skid that no late surge could fully undo. The post-Olympic push proved the group still had fight. It did not prove the group could win when everything was on the line.
Yet the season left Winnipeg with lasting moments. Scheifele rewrote the franchise record book, and Hellebuyck brought home Olympic gold. Toews closed his career in front of the city that raised him. For a fanbase that had expected a Stanley Cup run, those memories had to carry a long, quiet spring.
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