Answer to Jets’ woes ‘has to come from within’ Winnipeg GM Cheveldayoff discusses the team’s early struggles, old veterans and young prospects in an exclusive interview By: Mike McIntyre Posted: 4:49 PM CST Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025

NASHVILLE — Nobody said it was going to be easy. That’s the reality of life in the modern NHL, where parity reigns and contenders and pretenders can seemingly trade places overnight.

But Kevin Cheveldayoff admits he didn’t think it would be quite this difficult. Not for the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winners who raised expectations after a dream 2024-25 season — yet now find themselves near the bottom of the league standings almost one-third of the way into 2025-26.

Just what has happened to the Winnipeg Jets? That’s one of the many questions we posed to the club’s longtime general manager, who spoke exclusively with the Free Press prior to Saturday’s game at Bridgestone Arena.

“Obviously there doesn’t seem to be a straight path to where we want to get to,” Cheveldayoff said, shortly before his wounded club at least temporarily stopped the bleeding with a 5-2 victory over the Predators — the NHL’s worst team — which snapped a four-game losing streak and improved their record to 13-11-0.

The win was only their fourth in the past dozen games, bumping them to 24th overall in the 32-team league. Some regression was expected. But these Jets haven’t even resembled the Stanley Cup hopefuls fans fell in love with a year ago, despite retaining much of the same core.

Is the season already slipping away?

“I don’t think it’s necessarily a spiral,” said Cheveldayoff. “It’s a tough league to win in on a nightly basis, but one thing is tried and true: You have to play a certain way to be successful. When we can find that consistency and do that on a nightly basis, I think we can be successful.”

That wasn’t an issue last season. So why has the DNA of this group shifted? One theory: the Jets failed to adequately replace the flashy, creative Nikolaj Ehlers, who signed with Carolina in free agency.

Winnipeg’s four free-agent additions — Jonathan Toews, Gustav Nyquist, Tanner Pearson and Cole Koepke — were meant to lighten the offensive load of the team’s top players and bring some much-needed secondary scoring. They’ve combined for just six goals (Toews 3 in 24 games, Pearson 3 in 22, Nyquist 0 in 19 and Koepke 0 in 16).

Does Cheveldayoff bear some responsibility for those underwhelming returns?

“Yeah, sure, absolutely,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you’re looking at what’s available to you and you try to assess what might and might not work. I don’t know that it’s fair to put it on any individual UFA that we signed. There’s lots of players that, as a group and as a team, you have to find a way to win.”

“I think if you asked him there’s a lot more left (to give) in his game.”

Fair enough, as the list of underachieving forwards essentially involves everyone not named Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor or Gabe Vilardi.

“There’s no question that line has carried a lot for us. We’re very fortunate for that. Very odd, I guess, that nine other guys are in slumps at the same time,” said Cheveldayoff. “But that’s why you’re a professional athlete — find a way.”

The Toews signing came with great fanfare, with the future Hall of Famer pencilled in as the No. 2 centre behind Scheifele. But aside from his excellence in the faceoff circle, his production (9 points, team-worst minus-12) hasn’t come close to what an elite team expects from that position.

Is it too early to deem this a failure?

“I think if you asked him there’s a lot more left (to give) in his game,” said Cheveldayoff.

“Not only is he having to come off two years of not playing, two years coming off the illness that he had, but it’s playing in a new system, playing with different people… it’s all a progression. I wouldn’t say that he’s doing backflips with his game. As a group we just need to continue to build as a team.”

Another theory is the Jets simply got older and slower in a league trending younger and faster. Toews, 37, Nyquist, 36, and Pearson, 33, joined 36-year-old Luke Schenn, acquired at last year’s trade deadline and now a regular on the blue line. None are known for their wheels.

Are the Jets properly built to compete?

“To win in the National Hockey League you have to play fast,” Cheveldayoff said.

“To win in the National Hockey League you have to play fast.”

“You can skate fast all day long. There’s lots of players that can do that, that can go one hundred million miles an hour. But you have to play fast. By that, you have to be able to execute at high levels and you have to be able to do the details.”

To that extent, he believes there’s untapped potential, and the lack of cohesive two-way play has bogged them down. The Jets did look quicker Saturday night against Nashville, which may lend support to that theory.

Injuries have played a role in Winnipeg’s struggles. That’s not an excuse. It’s the reality. Shutdown defenceman Dylan Samberg missed the first 16 games with a broken wrist; top-six winger Cole Perfetti missed 14 with a high-ankle sprain; and shutdown centre and captain Adam Lowry missed 12 after hip surgery.

All three are back but not yet up to full speed. And just as it appeared the roster was finally intact, reigning Hart and Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck required arthroscopic knee surgery and has missed the past five games, with three to five more weeks expected.

On top of that, key defenceman Neal Pionk has missed the past three with a lower-body injury. Other teams are hurting too, Cheveldayoff noted, as this year’s compressed pre-Olympic schedule grinds down rosters league-wide.

“No one else is feeling sorry for you, so if you are, you better figure that out pretty quickly,” said Cheveldayoff.

“When other organizations have had to go through it, you either find a way or you don’t. You’ve got the challenge in front of you. The challenge is to find a way.”

With the struggles mounting, fans are clamouring for a shake-up. Is a trade on the GM’s radar?

“You’re always talking, you’re always looking,” he said. “But we are in a different world. There’s lots of teams that used to have to make trades because there was no salary cap room. Well, there’s lots of teams with lots of salary cap. So that avenue of necessity for some teams isn’t necessarily as great right now.”

“No one else is feeling sorry for you, so if you are, you better figure that out pretty quickly.”

Complicating matters: the standings are tighter than ever, and even the league’s bottom teams are still within striking distance of a playoff spot. There may be potential buyers out there. There just aren’t any sellers yet.

“In situations like this, the truth is it has to come from within,” Cheveldayoff said.

He made it clear he has full confidence in head coach Scott Arniel — a Jack Adams finalist last season — and the rest of the staff.

“The coaches, they’re preaching the same things. They don’t necessarily have the same group in front of them. They have to learn some different individuals, how to poke and prod and push and pull and different things like that,” said Cheveldayoff.

“It’s not something that anyone is sitting back and saying ‘Don’t worry about it, it’ll be alright.’”

Cheveldayoff hasn’t taken any additional steps with players, such as face-to-face meetings, but there has been an uptick in hot-stove sessions with Arniel and company to try to find answers. Even during the club’s 9-3-0 start, there was behind-the-scenes concern.

“There were some key points in the analytics of our group where we weren’t sitting there saying ‘Phew, we’re 9-3.’ You could see there were aspects of our game we were getting away with. And you can’t get away with it all the time,” said Cheveldayoff.

“The hardest part is how do you correct it?”

Arniel took the public-shaming route after Friday’s 5-1 loss in Carolina, saying some veterans “forgot to show up for the start of the game.”

Did that criticism catch Cheveldayoff off guard?

“It’s interesting. When a coach or a GM or whatever says those kind of headline material things, did those players just slough it off? No,” said Cheveldayoff.

“The context of that is they prepared, but it didn’t work for them. So what now? What next? It’s not like guys are sitting there having a coffee and a cigarette saying ‘OK, this is going to be an easy one tonight.’ But that, I think, is the mental aspect of how hard it is to play, how hard it is to stay, and how hard it is to be elite on a nightly basis.”

As losses have mounted, fans have pushed for Winnipeg to “play the kids” — something they’ve done in small sample sizes this year with forwards Brad Lambert, Parker Ford and Nikita Chibrikov, defenceman Elias Salomonsson and goaltender Thomas Milic all getting limited looks so far.

“One thing (Arniel) is very open to is trying to see if he can integrate some of these younger guys,” said Cheveldayoff.

“But you have to be very very careful when you put young players in situations. You have to make sure you can put them in the best situation to succeed or else you get chewed up and spit out in the National Hockey League.

Lambert, Ford and Chibrikov are now back with the Manitoba Moose, and reports surfaced last week — through Lambert’s agent — that he would be open to a trade, believing his path to full-time work is blocked with the Jets.

Is Cheveldayoff shopping the 2022 first-rounder, who has three points (1G, 2A) in 10 career NHL games so far?

“Brad’s a big part of our future here,” said Cheveldayoff. “When you come to the National Hockey League, you want to come here to show your strengths and be the player that we as an organization hope you can be.

“There’s lots of players in the American Hockey League that maybe got their chances, went to the National Hockey League and weren’t able to stay, and maybe now are career American Leaguers. One thing we always preach to our young players is I know you all want to get here quick, but we want you to stay here long.”

Cheveldayoff said as much as they may want to revel in last year’s accomplishments, life in the NHL moves fast. The Jets came into this year with a big target on their backs. So far, they haven’t responded accordingly.

“You can’t play this game or compete in this game with a rear-view mirror. You have to be forward thinking. Just because you had success isn’t going to mean that you’re automatically entitled to have that success moving forward,” he said.

“A coach can yell and scream and do things like that, but the players have to hold themselves accountable. That is a strength of our group and hopefully this is just part of the bumps along the way. It was smooth sailing for a long period of time last year until it wasn’t. You have to kind of earn your stripes.”

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