Are the Winnipeg Jets really this good? Inside their hot start — and whether it’s sustainable

Just 19 games into the 2024-25 season, the Jets are a juggernaut.

How did Winnipeg become so dominant? What’s changed from last season? Is it possible this is sustainable and the Jets should be a Stanley Cup favorite?

Here’s a deep dive into all things Winnipeg Jets, and whether this sensation will last.

What has changed from last season?

The Jets were already considered a strong defensive team. Most of that credit went to goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who captured his second Vezina Trophy last season while helping the Jets to a share of the NHL lead in goals against average (2.41 per game). But the team in front of him was tied for 10th overall in expected goals against per 60 minutes last season.

It’s their offense that’s the biggest change season-over-season. Through 18 games, the Jets were averaging 4.11 goals per game, after averaging 3.16 in 2023-24. That’s after a Florida swing that saw them muster just one tally against the Tampa Bay Lightning and nothing against the Florida Panthers. They earned a little revenge on Tuesday, besting the Panthers 6-3.

The Jets became the fourth team since 1967-68 to lead the NHL in goals for and against per game through their first 15 games. Their 73 goals in 16 games was the third most by a team in its first 16 games over the last 30 seasons.

Winnipeg has 11 players with 10 or more points this season. While offensive stars like Mark Scheifele (24 points in 19 games) and Kyle Connor (12 goals) have done their part, the Jets are also getting huge contributions from players like Gabriel Vilardi (seven goals) and Nino Niederreiter (seven goals).

“Everybody’s involved in it and that’s what makes it so dangerous, so lethal. It’s not just a one-trick pony,” Connor said. “If one line has an off night, we usually have two or three going that can pick it up. So I think that’s what makes us so dynamic.”

Connor said that the team’s offense comes from that aforementioned defensive prowess.

“It starts in our own zone,” he said. “When we defend well, the team’s going to give us all the chances that we need and I think that’s where we’re focused on coming into every single game.”

The team’s 5-on-5 scoring numbers aren’t all that different from last season, as the Jets had the same goals-per-60 minutes average (2.67) through 18 games as they had all of last season. Their expected goals have ticked up from 2.43 in 2023-24 to 2.61 per 60 minutes this season.

What’s helped fuel the Jets’ offense is a power play that led the league at a 36.5% conversion rate, producing a league-high 19 goals in 18 games. Winnipeg had a power-play success rate of 18.8% last season.

Of course, Payne isn’t the biggest change to the coaching staff from last season. Scott Arniel was elevated from associate coach to head coach after the retirement of Rick Bowness, and that’s been as much a factor in their success as anything.

How Scott Arniel lifted up the Jets

Scott Arniel had plenty to discuss about his own team when the Jets rolled into New York to face the Rangers earlier this month.

But he couldn’t help reminiscing too, about his time spent with the Blueshirts from 2013-18 as an assistant coach under then-bench boss Alain Vigneault. It was Arniel’s first big league opportunity following his inaugural NHL coaching job with the Columbus Blue Jackets from 2010-12.

Arniel called the Rangers gig “a real reset” after the firing in Columbus, helping New York to a Stanley Cup Final in 2014 and three more postseason appearances from there. The experience left an indelible mark.

“We had a chance to go to the Stanley Cup,” Arniel said. “We didn’t win it [against the Los Angeles Kings], but the opportunity to be in the Eastern Conference and see the rivalries that are out here, it was a great learning curve for me. I got to work under some good people that springboarded me forward to where I am today.”

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There were more stops along the way before Arniel secured his second head gig. He was let go — along with Vigneault and most of his staff — in 2018 and moved onto an assistant spot with Washington. In 2022, Jets’ coach Rick Bowness brought Arniel to Winnipeg. When Bowness had to step aside for medical reasons during his tenure, it was Arniel who took the reins. So when Bowness retired last summer, Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff didn’t have to look far for his replacement.

“He’s got intimate knowledge of a lot of different things,” Cheveldayoff said of tapping Arniel. “I was around when he made a couple of phone calls to some of the captains and [Connor Hellebuyck], and then talking to them [after], they were already talking about the season, they were already talking about next season; there wasn’t that kind of get to know you conversation. It was, ‘damn right, let’s get going.’ That passion definitely came through.”

Cheveldayoff also noted positive player feedback on the structure put in place with Arniel on the coaching staff. There was a desire from the team to maintain consistent messaging, something Arniel has delivered. The Jets are flexible under his eye, as capable of winning a tight-checking 1-0 affair as they are a 6-5 shootout. Arniel preaches discipline from the defensive side on out, and it’s served Winnipeg in becoming the multi-faceted powerhouse they’ve so often been throughout this season.

It goes back to a trust in those relationships between players and coach, a product of Arniel’s time learning from Bowness.

“It’s coaches pushing players,” Arniel said of his philosophy. “It’s players pushing players. It’s just kind of that mindset.”

The players said having Arniel step in when Bowness was away during the last two seasons helped the transition.

Success can allow for that kind of serenity, but the Jets coaches want to make sure it doesn’t lead to complacency. They’ve been pleased to find that the players have an appetite for scrutiny despite stacking wins.

“Us coaches, we’re never happy. It doesn’t matter what the record is,” Arniel said. “We’re always finding things that maybe you want to work on, but that’s where this group has been good: We know what our structure is and if we continue to lead with that first, that usually helps us have success.”

Arniel said his phone has been blowing up with messages from NHL peers commenting on his team’s historic start.

“There’s been some funny ones, some real good ones,” he said. “There’s so many good coaches in this league. They’re gunning for us, so you’ve got to be ready because these guys are always at their best.”

The Connor Hellebuyck effect

Connor Hellebuyck is delivering one heck of an encore.

The league’s reigning Vezina Trophy winner is better now than he was last season. Hellebuyck made it look easy as he cruised to a league-leading 12-1-0 mark with a .924 save percentage and 1.92 goals-against average to open this campaign. And despite a hiccup against Florida — where Hellebuyck stopped 26 of 31 shots in a 5-0 Jets loss — he has rarely been short of spectacular manning the Jets’ crease.

Hellebuyck has three shutouts already, including in back-to-back outings against Colorado (1-0) and Utah (3-0). Surprisingly, it marked the first pair of consecutive shutouts in Hellebuyck’s career, and gave the netminder 40 total.

Winnipeg leans on its goaltender to be a difference-maker, and the 31-year old embraces that pressure by demanding a heavy workload. He’s started more games (484) than any NHL goaltender since 2016-17 and is tied for the fourth-best save percentage (.917%) in that stretch among goalies with at least 50 starts.

“I like to play a lot,” Hellebuyck earlier this month. “Once you get your rhythm, you can just kind of maintain it … [things] just kind of click and you see the game, and you kind of get ahead of the game. The more and more shots you get, the better you get ahead of that game.”

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Connor Hellebuyck robs Panthers with save

Connor Hellebuyck robs Panthers with save

Putting too much weight on his own shoulders has derailed Hellebuyck in the past, though. He followed up that Vezina-worthy regular season with a shockingly poor first-round playoff effort against the Colorado Avalanche; Hellebuyck was 1-4, with an .870 SV% and 5.23 GAA.

What Hellebuyck said post-series was even more jaw-dropping, all things considered: “You’re probably not going to believe when I say I was playing the best hockey of my career.”

That’s Hellebuyck, though; never short on confidence. He mused that instead of trying to win games on his own he had to be part of the full team’s undertaking.

“There’s two ways to go about it,” Hellebuyck said before the season started. “Try and do it yourself, or try and rely on a team. The way I’ve gotten to where I am today is really digging into myself and doing everything I can, which really helps the team in the long run. [But] don’t deviate from what I’ve given myself [either].”

Hellebuyck has clearly struck the right balance this season. He’s recorded at least a .900 SV% in 10 of his 14 appearances, and allowed two or fewer goals against in seven outings. That’s been a complement to what the Jets are achieving as a whole, with consistent scoring, vastly improved special teams and impressive buy-in defensively.

“We were on an eight-game winning streak. We played Colorado so well in the regular season and it just didn’t go our way in the playoffs,” winger Kyle Connor said. “This group’s been together for quite a long time now and the overall message was that we’ve got to get better as a group. Every single person in here has to take another level.”

Teams respond to playoff disasters in different ways. The series loss to Colorado — a 7-6 Game 1 win, followed by four straight defeats — didn’t lead to a panicky overhaul of the roster or a crisis of faith for the franchise. It did lead the Jets to look inward as to why their regular-season success hadn’t led to postseason glory, both for the players and the coaches.

“I think it’s two years in a row that you lose at five. Two great regular seasons in back-to-back years and then early first-round exits is not what we’re looking for,” said forward Cole Perfetti. “We know we have the group that can go a long way. We’ve proven to have a lot of regular-season success now. We’re just trying to build day after day to find that next level, next gear and hopefully propel us deep into the playoffs.”

When Arniel was elevated to head coach, one of his offseason objectives was to look under the Jets’ hood analytically to better understand how Colorado flipped the script on them. It was clear the Avalanche had changed tactics offensively in the series, using a dump-and-chase attack that impacted Winnipeg’s defense and hindered its offense, and the Jets hadn’t reacted quick enough to that.

Rather than building up a reserve of rage and discontent, Winnipeg channeled that frustration into a teachable moment for the group.

“It was a big thing that we talked about the start of the year and then we put behind us,” Arniel said. “There’s a process that we got to build. We’re trying to build that resiliency now that makes us good then, because it wasn’t good last year.”

He said the Colorado loss has also helped the team manage its emotions during this historic start.

“It’s why we’re not over the top, living the high life right now, because we know what happened last year,” the coach said. “We had a fantastic season, so we’re not going crazy here in November. I don’t think the Stanley Cup’s ever been handed out in November.”

The consistency of roster

Connor said that part of being a Winnipeg Jet is knowing that reinforcements might not arrive from elsewhere.

“You don’t typically get those big free agents. We have to improve in this room and I think everybody took that to heart,” he said. “You can kind of see the fruitions of that today.”

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For the most part, this roster has been together for two seasons. You have to go back to the end of the 2022-23 season to find the last time this roster was really shaken up: That’s when former captain Blake Wheeler had the last year of his contract bought out and controversial center Pierre-Luc Dubois was traded to Los Angeles for Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari and Gabriel Vilardi — all of whom are contributors on this current Jets team.

Arniel said that having consistency with the roster helps “when you have to go through big changes” as a team.

“There’s a growing period, and I think that we’ve kind of been through that already as a group over the last couple of years,” he said. “Whether that’s players playing amongst each other, whether it’s defensive partners, whether it’s line combinations, they’ve had the ability to do it for the last few years.”

Another thing happened in 2023: Both Scheifele and Hellebuyck committed to remain with the organization long-term. They both signed seven-year, $59.5 million contracts to end any speculation about becoming the next prominent names putting Winnipeg in the rear-view mirror.

“We’re all just jelling really well together,” Perfetti said. “And I think guys get along really well off the ice. So I think that adds to a lot of the team’s success. We found a good groove and we’re just sticking to it right now.”

What the analytics tell us

Some of the Jets’ analytics at 5-on-5 aren’t exactly harbingers of dominance. Natural Stat Trick has their expected goals percentage at 48.2%, which is 22nd in the league. It ticks up a bit when adjusted for score: 49.1% when the game is within one goal. The same goes for their percentage of shot attempts.

But while the Jets’ 5-on-5 numbers are a bit average, the NHL data analysts we surveyed marveled at the Jets’ power play this season.

“They are scoring at an incredible rate on the power play, shooting 14.1% vs 10.4% last season,” said Meghan Chayka of Stathletes. “They are doing this while averaging a similar shot quality: 15.6 scoring chances per game to 15.4 in 2023-2024.”

Chayka notes that through Nov. 15, Winnipeg was scoring a goal every 4:09 of power-play time, when the NHL average is 8:03.

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ESPN’s Rachel Doerrie said the biggest difference for the Jets year over year is special teams, with the power play clicking around double the rate that it did last season.

“Their power-play shooting percentage is sky-high,” she said.

But Doerrie expects their numbers on the man advantage will come back to earth at some point. “I’d expect their power-play percentage to level off around 25% — still top 10 in the NHL, but not historical,” she said.

At 5-on-5, the Jets appear to be creating more off the rush and causing chaos in front of the opposing goal.

“They seem to be generating more scoring opportunities with traffic, which have a higher likelihood of conversion,” Doerrie said. “They are also the type of goals that get scored in the playoffs — a very translatable style of offensive play.”

Doerrie was not only impressed with how often the Jets score this season but when they score. Winnipeg was 25th in the NHL last season in first-period goals. This season, they’re averaging more than a goal per game in the first period.

“Giving Hellebuyck a lead and allowing the bottom-six guys to go to work plays right into their hands,” she said. “If you’re scoring in the first and you aren’t giving up that lead, that’s a good sign.”

But for all of their offensive fireworks, the Jets remain most consistently impressive on defense.

“The Jets are the top team in the NHL in expected save percentage. They are structured defensively and that isn’t a surprise, as they have been top seven the last two seasons as well,” Chayka said. “Only 21.6% of shot attempts against are scoring chances, which is the third lowest in the NHL.

“Connor Hellebuyck is performing at an exceptional level again this season, so it’s not a surprise with him being top three in goals saved above expected the last two full seasons. They are a structured defensive team with a strong goalie.”

Is this sustainable?

Perfetti admitted that the Jets’ scorching start has probably made him more superstitious than usual.

“Just because we got such a good thing going. Everyone’s playing so well, our team’s finding so much success,” he said. “You don’t want to change too much up. You just want to ride the high and keep going with it.”

Through 18 games, the Jets have an .833 points percentage. Maintaining that pace would obliterate the best 82-game regular-season ever, set by the Boston Bruins (.823) in 2022-23.

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Is that possible? Is this sustainable?

“Honestly, we know what we’re doing, but we don’t take too much stock in it. It’s move on to the next one. It’s ‘how can we improve, how can we be better?'” Connor said. “I think that’s what made us successful to this point. Nobody’s satisfied.”

So many things have gone right for the Jets thus far. They’ve used just 20 skaters this season, the second fewest in the NHL, according to Chayka. While other teams have juggled their lineups due to early-season injuries, the Jets fly on.

“Even if the Jets continue to avoid the injuries, there are questions about how sustainable this run is,” she said.

Chayka points to the Winnipeg offense as a point of concern. Through Nov. 15, they led the NHL in goals scored above expected, at plus-19.9 in all situations. Chayka believes that if they regressed to the NHL average, the Jets “would be near where their goals per game was last season.”

That offense has allowed them to win even when they’ve dug themselves a hole. Chayka notes that the Jets have won seven of 10 games when giving up the first goal to an opponent — a .700 winning percentage.

“Winnipeg has allowed the first goal in 10 of 17 games, including being down at least 2-0 five times. But it is 7-3-0 in those games,” she said. “There have only been four teams with a winning percentage above .600 when trailing first in games over the last five seasons.”

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Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Winnipeg Jets: Game Highlights

Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Winnipeg Jets: Game Highlights

Doerrie is also skeptical about the Jets avoiding the injury bug and remaining as good on the power play as they’ve been. She has faith in Hellebuyck, but notes that he’s in the top six for high-danger saves per 60 minutes. “His high-danger save percentage is stable, but you don’t want your goalie facing the same number of high danger chances as Anaheim, Chicago and Nashville if you’re a contender,” she said.

In general, Doerrie believes Winnipeg is punching above its weight.

“Winnipeg’s record is better than they are, but they are a solid team. They are middle-of-the-pack in predictive stats like expected goals and percentage of shot attempts, and that is more indicative of their true talent. They are actually performing marginally worse in those categories than they were last season, a sign of that regression is likely on the horizon,” she said.

“They are likely to outperform those stats compared to other teams because of Hellebuyck, but not to the extent that has occurred this season. They’ve given themselves a cushion, but the statistical profile has some red flags that should give people pause before declaring them as a true Cup threat.”

But for the Jets, the cushion is the key. If there is regression, if these recent duds in Florida become more frequent, if Winnipeg’s early-season dominance wanes, they feel they’ve captured significant points in the first two months of the season to weather that.