The Jets aim to win four crucial divisional games over the St. Louis Blues next season. 

The Winnipeg Jets are coming off a historic year with franchise best numbers across the board. If they want to find themselves in a similar position, they'll need to win crucial games starting in the Central Division. The Central is tougher than ever and with only three available spots plus a pair of wild card spots, they need to win these games. 

One of their key divisional opponents is the St. Louis Blues, who they just finished facing off against in a seven-game thriller during the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. After trading decisive outcomes, Winnipeg clawed their way back into a memorable Game 7 featuring a game-tying goal by Cole Perfetti in the dying seconds followed up by a game winner in double overtime by captain Adam Lowry. If you include the 2024-25 season series, the Jets secured a 7-4-0 record in the matchup despite the Blues having a bounce back season and making the postseason. 

The history of this matchup as seen Winnipeg take a stranglehold as they've managed a 33-21-1-6 record over 61 matchups all-time versus the St. Louis. Winning divisional games is more crucial than ever in a such a tight playoff race with little to no room for error. The Blues will be looking to stay in the playoff picture and could present their best roster in some time.

They will see another year of development for their young talent in Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, Jake Neighbours and standout rookie Jimmy Snuggerud. St. Louis also added Pius Suter as a solid third line center and will get back breakout forward Dylan Holloway from injury. The Blues finished last with solid numbers across the board with a top-13 offence and a top-11 defense. 

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With their improvements, it could be the Blues' best chance in years to get a leg up on the Jets but it'll still be a tall order as Winnipeg made little lineup changes. The most notable loss is top six forward Nikolaj Ehlers, who left for the Carolina Hurricanes in free agency.

In response, they added former 75-point scorer from a season ago, Gustav Nyquist and added some veteran leadership in three-time Stanley Cup Champion Jonathan Toews. The Jets finished with a top four offence last season that could subtly improve and already have the league's best defense that has seen no changes on the backend. 

The season series between these two should be epic with the first game slated for December 17th as an early Christmas present. It'll be followed up by matchups on January 20th, March 15th and April 9th.

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