Jets looking to flip script as puck drops on season-defining road games

Just before jumping on the team charter Tuesday afternoon, Winnipeg Jets forward Morgan Barron was asked about yet another extended stretch away from home, sweet home.

Jets on the outside looking in at season’s quarter mark

As it stands right now, the Winnipeg Jets are a bubble team.

That’s what Jets defenceman Dylan DeMelo essentially said without actually using those exact words in the wake of Sunday’s 3-0 loss that left his team at 12-9-0.

“We are exactly what our record says we are,” DeMelo surmised.

DeMelo hit the nail on the head at the end of his analysis of where things stand just past the quarter point of the regular season.

Jets searching for consistency as they fall from playoff position

Dylan DeMelo made it clear that this was not a sound-the-alarm situation, though it does require some significant attention from the Winnipeg Jets.

As the Jets were blanked 3-0 on Sunday at Canada Life Centre to close out a three-game homestand with a 1-2 record that dropped them to 12-9-0 for the season, DeMelo reinforced the need for his team to find its trademark consistency and fast.

“I don’t think we are playing the way we want to play. We aren’t even close to where we need to be to be a successful team when it really matters down the road,” said DeMelo. “We’ve shown it in flashes but it hasn’t been consistent. We need to find that consistency, but we are only a quarter of the way into the season here. It’s that point where we need to start stringing games together and we’ll worry about the result. Usually when we’re playing well, we feel confident when we play our game and do the right thing, the result will take care of itself. We are exactly what our record says we are.”

The Jets open a five-game road trip on Wednesday against Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

Jets mailbag: Ironing out the crease, the defensive corps and new additions on readers’ minds

There are plenty of questions surrounding the state of the Winnipeg Jets, a quarter into their season. Free Press hockey writers Ken Wiebe and Mike McIntyre have the answers in the latest edition of our monthly Jets mailbag.

Winnipeg Jets goalie won’t be making many changes as he takes over top role

Eric Comrie knew the day was coming. He wasn’t sure exactly when, but at some point Connor Hellebuyck was going to take a timeout on his season.

And so the Winnipeg Jets backup goaltender stayed ready, waiting for the moment when the pain got too much and the reigning Hart and Vezina Trophy shut things down in order to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery.

“He was trying to play through it. He’s a tough guy,” Comrie said Saturday of Hellebuyck’s ailment, which first cropped up during training camp in September and was getting persistently worse over time

“He’s trying to give everything this team he could, give everything he can to the city.”

Mistakes costly as Jets fall to Hurricanes

With or without Connor Hellebuyck, the Winnipeg Jets were always going to be facing a tough test in the Carolina Hurricanes.

Taking on one of the NHL’s top teams without the reigning Hart and Vezina trophy winner didn’t help the cause Friday night in hard-fought 4-3 loss in front of a sold-out crowd at Canada Life Centre.

Jets goaltender Eric Comrie, who is going to have to hold down the crease for the next four-to-six weeks while Hellebuyck is recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery, stopped 24 of 28 shots he faced.

His debut as the main masked man got off to a rough start, with Carolina captain Jordan Staal beating him on the first shot of the game just 16 seconds into the opening period.

Jets’ Lowry honoured to continue representing’ great community’

Adam Lowry isn’t someone who enjoys hypotheticals, he prefers to deal in absolutes.

Earlier this week, the Winnipeg Jets captain was fielding questions from a group of young hockey players from St. John’s-Ravenscourt when he was on the receiving end of one that could have caught someone else off guard.

If you weren’t on the Jets, what team would you want to play for?

Lowry took a brief moment and kind of chuckled before explaining that if — and only if — playing for the Jets wasn’t an option, his hometown Calgary Flames were a team that would be at the top of his list.

Jets’ Hellebuyck sidelined with knee issue

One of Connor Hellebuyck’s greatest abilities over the course of his incredible 11-season NHL career has been his durability. So you can imagine the shock throughout the Winnipeg Jets room on Friday when they learned he is going to be sidelined for the next four to six weeks with a knee injury.

Jets shine light on former teammate protocol with Ehlers rolling into town

With a sheepish grin, Neal Pionk confessed earlier this week to a long-held secret about former teammate Nikolaj Ehlers.

“I sat next to him on the plane for five years. I know how to get into his head,” revealed the Winnipeg Jets defenceman.

Oh? Do tell.

“Not yet, not yet. I don’t want him to figure it out. But he knows. He knows it’s coming,” Pionk warned.

Heart-and-soul Lowry signs five-year extension with Jets

Adam Lowry is the heart and soul of the Winnipeg Jets, leading by example on and off the ice.

On Wednesday night, the 32-year-old got what he’d been hoping for: a contract extension that all but guarantees he’ll finish his NHL career where it began.

Lowry signed a new five-year deal that starts next season and runs through 2030–31. The contract carries an average annual value of US$5 million, which is a significant raise from the US$3.25 million he currently earns. With the salary cap expected to rise sharply in the coming years, his share of the team’s payroll is unlikely to increase much, if at all.

True North clearly feels he’s worth every penny. Co-owner and chairman Mark Chipman broke the news at the team’s annual fundraising gala at Canada Life Centre, with Jets defenceman Neal Pionk adding an assist as he rolled a video with the official announcement which included general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff singing Lowry’s praises.

Jets’ blue-liners heating up at the right time, adding danger to the defence

A backdoor redirect from Josh Morrissey. A perfectly executed one-timer by Neal Pionk. A laser beam from Logan Stanley to the top corner.

Scheifele notches three assists on night he becomes Jets’ leader in games played

The Winnipeg Jets can be a real handful when they bring their A game. Now add their A lineup to the mix and you have a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.

Those qualities were on full display Tuesday night in front of 13,847 fans at Canada Life Centre as the healthiest roster of the season skated to a dominant 5-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Centre Morgan Barron was the latest to come off the injury list — the fifth recent return along with captain Adam Lowry, shutdown defenceman Dylan Samberg and scoring wingers Cole Perfetti and Gustav Nyquist. They represent 25 per cent of the skaters who suited up and give the Jets an entirely different look.

The final score flattered the visitors who, to be fair, had played the night before at home and were not nearly as fresh as the hosts, who had been off since Saturday. Don’t discount the fact the Jets put forth one of their most complete efforts of the campaign, one that would give any opponent fits.

Blue Jackets’ Mateychuk making his Manitoba debut

Denton Mateychuk was confused.

It was just a few days before the Christmas break and the shifty blue-liner had arrived at the rink for an afternoon game with the Cleveland Monsters, the American Hockey League affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

There was only one problem: his name wasn’t on the lineup card for reasons unbeknownst to him.

As he prepared to walk into the office of Monsters head coach Trent Vogelhuber, the Dominion City product wasn’t sure what he had done to be a healthy scratch.

Samberg’s hockey smarts a welcome addition to Jets blue line

As awkward as it felt at the time, Dylan Samberg was quick to admit that getting on the ice without being able to touch the puck was a critical element to speeding up his recovery.

“It obviously stunk that I wasn’t able to stick handle or shoot or anything like that,” said Samberg, the Winnipeg Jets defenceman who returned to the lineup during the past two games after his broken wrist finally healed. “But, those things come back pretty quickly at least. But whereas conditioning is kind of the harder one to get into.”

The rust was minimal for Samberg in games against the Calgary Flames and Seattle Kraken and conditioning certainly wasn’t an issue as he was just north of 23 minutes in his season debut and then just above 24 minutes of ice time in Saturday’s tilt that required a shootout for the Jets to win.

You can expect Samberg to remain in that range as the Jets open a three-game homestand against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.

Weak link or menace? Lowry finding his game after lengthy absence to start season

CALGARY — When Adam Lowry was searching for solutions, he was quick to point the finger directly at himself — even if the critical self-assessment was probably harsher than it needed to be.

While the Winnipeg Jets captain would have been well within his right to grant himself a bit of grace as he makes his way back from a lengthy absence and long road to recovery after enduring off-season hip surgery in late May, there was Lowry standing in the middle of the room on Saturday referring to himself as the weak link on his line during his first few games of the season.

During the past three games, the Lowry trio with Nino Niederreiter and Alex Iafallo has been a driving force at both ends of the ice.

“A big part of that is the reads that I’m making are so much better. In the first three games, I was slow,” Lowry said before the Jets earned a 4-3 shootout victory over the Calgary Flames to close out a six-game road trip. “I was maybe a little tentative, maybe getting used to contact, the chaos. You can only do so much of that in practice or when you’re skating by yourself. Nino and Al, they’re such consistent performers. They’re so steady, you know what you’re going to get from them every night.