Will Jets go for the gusto? Rumours say the club could swing a big deal before trade deadline By: Jeff Hamilton Posted: 7:00 PM CST Friday, Feb. 24, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/02/2023 (973 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With fewer than two weeks before the trade deadline on March 3, it’s become crunch time for many teams across the NHL.

As for the Winnipeg Jets, they’re still in the midst of figuring out what the future holds. Rumours have connected several players to Winnipeg in recent weeks and the buzz is the Jets are positioning themselves to be a major buyer, creating the real potential of a notable trade in the coming days.

“Those are conversations you have pretty much all through the year, probably a little more intense as you get closer. We’re always looking for ways to improve our team, like everyone else,” Jets head coach Rick Bowness said after the club’s morning skate Friday. “That’s what the league is. Every team I’ve been on, it’s the same thing: you’re always meeting, talking, having a beer, talking about things. Those conversations are going all the time with every organization I’ve been on.”

Significant moves have already been made, with the likes of the New York Rangers (winger Vladimir Tarasenko) and Toronto Maple Leafs (centre Ryan O’Reilly) adding key pieces in hopes of making a long playoff run. The Jets are no strangers to making blockbuster deals at the deadline, including acquiring Paul Stastny (2018) and Kevin Hayes (2019) in recent years.

It can be a hectic time for NHL general managers and especially for those like Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, as he competes with other clubs trying to bolster their roster. But it can also be an unnerving time for the players, too, as trades bring the potential for some to be shown the door, perhaps as a trade piece, or have their playing time drastically reduced.

The Jets have leaned on their current group to put themselves in a position to be buyers. They entered Friday’s action against the Colorado Avalanche one point shy of the Dallas Stars for first place in the Central Division and are four points back of the Vegas Golden Knights for tops in the Western Conference.

“It’s always kind of the elephant in the room, in the sense you don’t want to talk about it,” Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey told the Free Press. “But the reality of every single season, regardless of where you are in the standings – a team that’s either rebuilding or selling or a team that’s adding – there’s a lot of stuff going on for everyone and every team has things that could potentially happen.”

Morrissey added: “It’s probably different and more difficult on certain guys, guys with kids or guys where they might have an inkling that they might get moved or whatever. You just try to support your teammates.”

Players are often reluctant to voice an opinion one way or the other, for risk of alienating a teammate or feeling that they might be talking out of turn, as it’s the general manager’s job to handle trades. It’s safe to say every team wants to add pieces that improve the roster, but there seems little incentive for players to say that publicly when they aren’t the ones negotiating the deals.

“It’s not in our hands at all,” Jets centre Mark Scheifele told the Free Press. “We all have our opinions about it, but at the end of the day they really don’t matter. There’s already been some big trades and there are a lot of teams getting really good, so it should make for an interesting end to the season.”

It’s not just the players, either, as Bowness deflected all questions about the potential to make moves at the deadline, adding that any queries should be taken up with Cheveldayoff. Even after the coach dropped the news that forward Cole Perfetti would be out at least eight weeks with an upper-body injury, Bowness opted not to comment on whether that added more pressure to making a trade.

Bowness did, however, address what his players might be dealing with as the deadline nears.

“When you sign to be a professional athlete, you’re signing away – unless you have a complete no-movement clause – you could be traded at any time. That’s something we all have to live with. That’s part of being a pro athlete,” he said. “You can’t make excuses for any of them. You signed the contract, you put yourself in the position that at some point you could be traded, you could be sent down. It’s something we live with.”

“When we went on that run to the conference finals, I was reading everything and there was a bunch of guys rumoured to be coming here and then last minute we ended up getting Paul Stastny and nobody saw that coming.”–Josh Morrissey

The Jets were already looking for a top-6 forward before Perfetti was ruled out, making the need that much greater. Winnipeg would also like to add to its defence group, potentially bringing in a veteran presence on the blue line.

Morrissey said it’s only human that players keep up with the trade rumours and how they might affect the team they’re on or the division and conference they play against. But he’s also been around long enough to know that anything can happen.

“When we went on that run to the conference finals, I was reading everything and there was a bunch of guys rumoured to be coming here and then last minute we ended up getting Paul Stastny and nobody saw that coming,” Morrissey said. “If we don’t make a single move, I have a ton of confidence in our team. If we make moves, you just adapt and move forward. In between now and next Friday, we’ve got some huge games and we need to just try and stay focused on the task at hand.”

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton is a sports and investigative reporter. Jeff joined the Free Press newsroom in April 2015, and has been covering the local sports scene since graduating from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2012. Read more about Jeff.

Every piece of reporting Jeff produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.