From Presidents' Trophy to playoff miss, the Jets squandered their core's prime, battling injuries, departures, and an epic losing streak.
The Winnipeg Jets' 2025-26 season is over.
Well, not officially. But by the time that the Los Angeles Kings had taken care of their business against the Seattle Kraken by way of a 5-3 road win, the Jets were down 3-0 to the Vegas Golden Knights on the road.
That Kings win was the nail in the coffin for Winnipeg, sealing its fate as a team not qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs this spring.
Yes, the same team that had finished the 2024-25 regular season with the Presidents' Trophy, emblematic of the best overall record and home ice advantage through the Stanley Cup Final.
Photo by Stephen Sylvanie/USA Today Of course, Connor Hellebuyck had a difficult postseason, Mark Scheifele lost his father unexpectedly, and the Jets fell apart in last spring's fall from grace.
That feeling seemingly carried over to the fall of 2025, with Winnipeg showing some uncharacteristic flaws, ultimately leading to a sub-par record out of the starting gate.
An injury to shut down defender Dylan Samberg in the pre-season, paired with mid-season knee surgery for Hellebuyck did not bode well for the Jets' ranking within the standings. By the season's midpoint, the conversation had actually shifted to a "from first to last" sort of mantra.
It was that bad.
The Jets fell all the way from the top to the bottom. Highlighted by a rather unbelievable franchise record of 11-straight losses, Winnipeg bottomed out as the calendar flipped to 2026.
The offseason following the Presidents' Trophy win saw the departure of the speedy Nikolaj Ehlers - whose presence was sorely missed this season. The key moves by general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff was the signings of Jonathan Toews, Gus Nyquist, Cole Koepke and Tanner Pearson.
Pearson was shipped off to Buffalo with Logan Stanley and Luke Schenn at the trade deadline - which garnered a strong return for Winnipeg.
Toews has 11 goals on the season in his first year back in the bigs following a four-year run highlighted by various health issues and coping mechanisms. Nyquist has just one goal in 51 games and has been a healthy scratch more often than not in key moments.
Koepke has been a shining star for the Jets, but sat in the press box for the better part of the first few months of the season. His speed, toughness and mentality is exactly what other Jets forwards should look to emulate when on the ice.
Winnipeg battled back after the Olympic break. At one point, the Jets actually had the best post-Olympic record. That faded as the season hit its breaking point, and the Jets ultimately could not keep up their torrid pace through the season's final week.
Not to be lost among the failures that 2025-26 brought were the performances from Mark Scheifele, who hit a career-high offensively and became the first player in franchise history to hit 100 points on the season, Gabe Vilardi, who now had 30 goals, Kyle Connor, who has nearly matched his 41 goal, 97 point campaign from last season and Josh Morrissey, who matched last season's performance of 14 goals.
Hellebuyck, who was obviously unable to match his Hart, Vezina and Jennings Trophy winning caliber of play from last year, had a difficult season, posting a pedestrian 23-23-11 campaign with no shutouts to his name.
It was, in all accords, another year wasted for Winnipeg's core group of players.
The inability to close games out when holding a lead, the inability to finish in overtime - at least in the season's first half - and the inability to find depth scoring throughout the lineup were three of the Jets' key downfalls this year.
Letting Ehlers walk with no suitable replacement was also a critical error heading into the season.
Cheveldayoff did what he could throughout the season, but for the Jets to finish the year with one of the franchise's all-time worst records since relocation from Atlanta was not on the bingo card of any league executive following the first-place finish last year.
The promotions of Elias Salmonsson, Brad Lambert, Parker Ford, Danny Zhilkin, Nikita Chibrikov and Brayden Yager have been a welcomed change from Winnipeg's typical draft and destroy method that has made its way through the minor league system over the past decade.
Whether or not those short showings garnered the full trust of the Jets coaching staff for 2026-27 remains unknown, but one thing is for certain, Winnipeg's performance this year was unacceptable and changes will be needed in time for the season opener next fall.
Where those changes land will be decisions made within the Jets' front office. If it's coaching, the removal of some veteran players, the promotion of youth... the options are endless. And for the first time in a very long time, Winnipeg will have a long summer on its hands to fully assess its direction and make decisions accordingly.