‘Everybody’s ready to go’ Toews only surprise omission on Jets opening-day roster By: Ken Wiebe Posted: 6:34 PM CDT Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025

All signs point to Jonathan Toews being ready to resume his NHL career on Thursday in the Winnipeg Jets season opener.

Although there is still another workout to get through, Jets head coach Scott Arniel sounded encouraged when asked about Toews’ status for the game against the Dallas Stars, though it came with an expected caveat.

“I’m hoping so,” said Arniel. “Day to day.”

The confusion was created when the Jets revealed an opening-day roster that didn’t include Toews on it, but rather had him on the non-roster injured reserve along with captain Adam Lowry, who continues to work his way back from off-season hip surgery.

Arniel explained this was more of a procedural move, one that was essentially the Jets exercising some precaution since Toews left last Tuesday’s exhibition game against the Minnesota Wild after “tweaking something” in his lower-body.

Toews has since returned to the ice and is tracking towards playing his first NHL game since Apr. 13 of 2023.

“He falls into a different category because he didn’t play last year,” said Arniel. “It just gives us an extra day to kind of take this through.”

“He falls into a different category because he didn’t play last year.”

Toews, who is coming back after a two-year hiatus that was health related, was a full participant in Tuesday’s workout, skating on a line with Gustav Nyquist and Nikita Chibrikov while also seeing time with the Jets’ second power-play unit.

Provided Toews makes it through Wednesday’s practice without suffering a setback, he would be eligible to be added to the active roster and make his debut in front of a hometown crowd eager to welcome him into the fold.

There were no other surprises with the Jets’ roster, which includes two goalies, seven defencemen and 14 forwards.

As long as Toews is good to go, Brad Lambert is the most likely candidate to be reassigned to the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League.

Parker Ford is another forward who doesn’t require waivers, but he appears to have a leg up in the competition after appearing in the finale exhibition game last week.

The Jets will also be without defenceman Dylan Samberg (broken wrist) and forward Cole Perfetti (ankle sprain) to start the campaign, so their depth will be tested right out of the gate — even if Toews gets the green light to play.

A concerted effort was made by Jets management to enhance the competition within the organization and to help insulate some of the younger players turning pro by adding some experienced free agents, many of whom have NHL experience.

The Jets got some positive news on that front on Monday when defenceman Ville Heinola and forward Walker Duehr cleared waivers, since keeping those players in the organization supplies some additional depth for a team that looks to be much improved from last season.

“We learned from it last year that we needed the depth through the regular season and we needed the depth in the playoffs with injuries to key people,” said Arniel. “We don’t do what we did through the season if you don’t have it. I think we’re even deeper this year.”

Heinola has seen limited playing time during the past two seasons because of issues with his ankle, so getting him into game action is a priority.

Although Heinola would likely prefer his journey include NHL playing time, he needs to go down and get back to doing the things he does well — which is moving the puck efficiently out of the defensive zone and getting involved offensively, both at even strength and on the power play.

If he can do that, either he could find an opportunity with the Jets or enhance his opportunity on another team.

Despite clearing waivers on Monday, Heinola’s trade value improves by clearing waivers, since an interested team could send him directly to the minors before giving him a chance.

However, Heinola will become a Group 6 unrestricted free agent next season if he doesn’t appear in 27 NHL games, so teams would be cognizant of that before making a potential deal.

As for the opportunity to open up against a Stars team that knocked them out of the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring in an overtime thriller in Game 6, the Jets are simply viewing this as an important Central Division matchup.

Nothing less and nothing more.

“It’s a brand new year,” said Jets winger Nino Niederreiter. “The first game, it’s pretty amped up and everybody’s ready to go. So, it will definitely be a great test right from the get-go.

“You can’t think about the past. Obviously, we know how good of a team they are and we know we’re a great team as well. There are some things we know we’ve got to be better at from the learning curve that we had last year.”

After jumping out to a remarkable 15-1 start, the Jets are simply looking to get to their identity as quickly as possible.

“You can see it’s a system that’s hard to play against, but it requires hard work.”

“It requires hard work,” said Jets forward Gustav Nyquist, one of the newcomers adapting to a stifling defensive system that has led to consecutive Jennings Trophies for allowing the fewest goals in the NHL. “But it comes down to all five guys on the ice are just going to have to want to do it. And that’s the kind of the standard that we’ve set here in camp, and I think we’ve done a good job of that.

“You can see it’s a system that’s hard to play against, but it requires hard work. But at the end of the day, just to get win a game — which they did a lot — it’s kind of easy to do.”

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

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