With their win over the Chicago Blackhawks, the True North franchise pulled within a point of the Western Conference’s final wildcard spot while moving up the standings to sit with the National Hockey League’s 23rd best record. Yet, the races are so tight at this point of time, that situation changed with last night’s slate of games.
In a contest that the Winnipeg Jets would have been very interested in since the clubs involved are just ahead and behind them in the wildcard race, the Los Angeles Kings & St. Louis Blues ended up going to overtime on Wednesday night before Trevor Moore won it for the Californian squad. That victory allowed LA to leapfrog the Nashville Predators to take the West’s 8th spot, sitting a full 2 points up on our Jets with equal games played. The league’s other two games yesterday also saw teams near the bottom of the standings pick up points, as the Vancouver Canucks won an 8-6 shoot out over the Colorado Avalanche and the San Jose Sharks launched a late 3rd period charge to steal a win from the Anaheim Ducks. As a result, both the Kings & Sharks moved in front of Winnipeg, dropping our team to the 25th best record with 8 games to play.
The Jets continue to straddle the fence between a playoff spot and a bottom 5 finish, as the hockey team is an equal 2 points from each of those scenarios. Here is how the bottom of the NHL standings appear before action gets underway on Thursday (courtesy of ESPN):
With 14 big league games on tap tonight, the constant shuffle for positioning will likely be very active. Interestingly, even though Winnipeg is only 2 pts back of a playoff spot….they will not be able to move into a tie for 8th in the West even with a win over the Stars tonight. How can that be? Well, it is due to the Kings & Predators going head-to-head on Thursday night, which will ensure that at least one of them picks up a full 2 pts and guaranteeing that the wildcard mark will be 79 or 80 when we wake up on Friday morning.
Many other games of interest to the Jets & their fans, as the Maple Leafs & Sharks match features a pair of clubs with just a single point more than Winnipeg. San Jose is still in the West’s wildcard hunt and while they also can’t secure a playoff position tonight, they could move into a tie with Nashville if both clubs win on Thursday. Toronto will lose their 1st round pick to Boston if they don’t end up in the bottom 10, so they might not be too motivated to pick up points (though they won their last game). The Seattle Kraken are just 1 pt behind the Jets and a win over the Utah Mammoth could allow them to overtake our club. Finally, in one of the earlier games, the Florida Panthers could also surpass Winnipeg with a win over the Boston Bruins.
Well, that is how the bottom of the NHL looks heading into Thursday’s contest…..
WPG Jets @ DAL Stars
Start Time: 7:00 pm Central – American Airlines Center
Winnipeg (32-30-12) is tied for 25th place in the NHL with 76 points on the season, scoring 213 Goals For (24th) and allowing 228 Goals Against (15th). Mark Scheifele leads the Jets with 34 goals, 58 assists, and 92 points. Kyle Connor is tied for the goal scoring lead too, while Gabriel Vilardi is 6 back with 28 goals.
Shortly after becoming the franchise’s longest serving player, Scheifele has now set a personal career high for points in 2025-26. His 92 pts to date have Winnipeg’s best center on pace for 101 points this year, which would be the first time in Jets 2.0 history that a skater reached that plateau in a regular season.
Dallas (44-19-12) is tied for the 2nd best record in the league with 100 points, scoring 255 Goals For (9th) and allowing 209 Goals Against (3rd). Jason Robertson leads the Stars with 89 points, Wyatt Johnston has the most goals with 41, and Miro Heiskanen is at the top of the assist category with 52.
With Robertson exploding offensively once again and only a full season away from reaching unrestricted free agent status, this off-season could be an interesting one for Dallas’ front office. The pending restricted free agent is likely looking for an extension in the $12M/year range, which will be difficult for the Stars to fit in with only a smidge over $14M to spend. Fortunately, they don’t have any other significant RFAs that need signing, so that will make the cap gymnastics a bit easier.
Here is how the two clubs’ year-to-date stats compare when you look at the head-to-head data, via ESPN‘s team & goaltender comparison numbers:
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Most of the above stats heavily favour Dallas, such as an almost 0.5 goal more scored per game and a powerplay that fires at a 11.2% better rate than Winnipeg’s. It is interesting that the Stars are such a low shot volume team…..it makes sense defensively since they are one of the NHL’s elite in that category, but becomes harder to understand how they have managed to have a top 10 offense when they average less rubber on opposing goalies than the Jets.
Those special team numbers for Dallas are quite impressive and should be very helpful when the post-season kicks off. Despite having the 13th best Expected Goals rate at 5 on 5 this year (50.51%), the Stars are the 5th best even strength scoring team (54.45%). The xG data isn’t a great sign for playoff success, especially since both the Colorado Avalanche & Minnesota Wild are sporting better numbers. The Texans might match up better versus the Minnesotans because while their xG stats are slightly better (51.16%), the Wild only score around that same pace too (51.06%).
Neither of America’s top 2 goaltenders are having good seasons, as both Connor Hellebuyck & Jake Oettinger have sub-par save percentages in 2025-26. Too early to say who will get the starts, but both starters played on Tuesday so have had a full day of rest.
Here are the line up projections for both clubs via PuckPedia based on the most recent games (will update once I get info from pre-game skate):
WINNIPEG JETS LINE UP
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DALLAS STARS LINE UP
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Even though Vladislav Namestnikov, Nino Niederreiter, & Colin Miller have been skating with the team, I don’t expect any of them back tonight. And Morgan Barron will certainly be out as he remains in concussion protocol.
So probably a continuation of the younger version of the Winnipeg Jets when the action gets underway. It does make me think what the coaches will do if the team does somehow work its way into a playoff spot. Will we see a return of the veteran-laden line up that led us to the NHL’s basement or the somewhat younger version that has stubbornly refused to give up on the season??
Go Winnipeg Jets!!!!!
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POST-GAME INFO
Scoring Summary: (courtesy of ESPN)
FINAL SCORE: Dallas Stars 3 Winnipeg Jets 0
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Game Stats: (courtesy of MoneyPuck)
Expected Goals (all): WPG 4.86 DAL 2.60
Expected Goals (5on5): DAL 2.06 WPG 1.27
A rather uninspired performance by a Winnipeg Jets club that was within smelling distance of a playoff spot. The Dallas Stars were the better team right from the opening face off and a couple mid-1st period goals pretty much ensured they would walk away with a win.
The True Northers did create some scoring chances, but most of these occurred outside of 5 on 5 play as well as happening after the Stars began sitting back to protect their multi-goal lead. Another subpar performance by Connor Hellebuyck in net and Winnipeg were short a defenseman for most of the game as rookie Elias Salomonsson was forced to leave the game early with an injury.
After the dust settled on the NHL’s Thursday action, Winnipeg has dropped to 27th in the standings and are now 3 points back of the Western Conference’s final wildcard spot. The San Jose Sharks have now grabbed a hold of that coveted position since they have a game in hand on the two franchises they are tied with 79 points. The Nashville Predators & Los Angeles Kings game ended up requiring extra time, with the West Coasters pulling out the win and moving the clubs into a tie with SJ at 79 points.
The Seattle Kraken refused to take the chance to pass our Jets by losing to the Utah Mammoth last night, but the St. Louis Blues could tie (and surpass in the standings) Winnipeg if they could manage a win over the Anaheim Ducks. The two other teams close to the Jets are the Florida Panthers, who picked up a win last night to give them 1 more point than Winnipeg, and the Toronto Maple Leafs, who also have 77 points but have played an extra game.
Here are how ESPN is showing the NHL’s bottom of the standings after Thursday’s action:
Next up for the True Northers is a visit to play the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday. It seems the “Bowness Bump” has officially ended for Columbus, as they had worked their way into a playoff spot after hiring Rick Bowness to take over the reins mid-season…but have more recently found themselves on a 5 game losing streak (lost 5 of last 6). Currently the Jackets are tied for the East’s final wildcard spot with 88 pts, but have played an extra game than the Detroit Red Wings & Ottawa Senators.
See you all on the weekend…..