Five lessons the Winnipeg Jets can learn from the Stanley Cup finalists

New York Times

2 days ago

The NHL likes to overreact to teams that have success.
But the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers' Stanley Cup Final rematch gives us a chance to dig deeper into what's worked for the two teams. It goes much deeper than drafting Connor McDavid or having an advantageous state tax — and those advantages, while real, often obscure what's led to Edmonton's and Florida's success.
Advertisement
Let's get right into it, then. What can Winnipeg learn from the two best teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs?
The first part of this two-part lesson is obvious: Teams that want to win must spend to the cap. Using PuckPedia as a guide, the Oilers and Panthers each exceeded the cap maximum with bonus overages factored in, while the Jets left money on the table.
Winnipeg tried — hard — to avoid that. When the Jets signed Cole Perfetti to a bridge deal last summer, part of the reasoning was to create room under the cap. This helped Winnipeg build space day by day, creating the potential to add over $12 million in contracts at the trade deadline. They succeeded in adding $6.25 million in the form of Brandon Tanev and Luke Schenn, but ultimately left a Brock Nelson-sized portion of cap space unused.
Remember that Winnipeg thought it had acquired Nelson prior to Colorado's emergence as the winner in that sweepstakes. It is my belief that Nelson, who had a no-trade clause, was initially open to going to Canada, but that the Avalanche were higher on his priority list. So the Jets don't need to be told that it's important to spend every dollar. It is not a matter of opinion to say it was Winnipeg's plan to do so.
It's also true that Dallas' playing roster cost between $4 million and $6 million more than Winnipeg's did during their playoff series, depending on who was dressed. Meanwhile, the Panthers open the Cup final with a roster that costs roughly $8 million more than the Jets team that lost to Dallas in Game 6. Edmonton will open the final spending $4 million less than Winnipeg's Game 6 roster — but only because Zach Hyman, $5.5 million, is injured.
Spending money just to spend money is not the goal, while it's worth noting that this year's trade deadline was a seller's market, based on the prices teams paid for lesser players — including Tanev and Schenn. The Jets' lack of pivot after Nelson fell through may reflect good sensibility regarding asset prices as opposed to a lack of judgment on their part.
Advertisement
But the Oilers and Panthers were a little more desperate than Winnipeg was — even at the cost of that sensibility.
In the salary-cap era, winning is an efficiency contest. If everybody has the same payroll, then the team that spends its money the most efficiently will have the best collection of players.
Those are the obvious basics, but there are wrinkles that develop throughout a season. Teams don't do all of their spending at once, and opportunities to spend efficiently don't all present themselves at once. The Jets' cap efficiency gave them an advantage over other teams when the season began. They're cap efficient again as the offseason begins, particularly with Blake Wheeler's buyout coming off the books. But Winnipeg didn't need to be cap efficient at the deadline — it needed more threats against a Dallas team that had been aggressive in its own right.
Winnipeg didn't need to bring in a $5 million player performing at a $5 million level for its cap space to have been useful; anybody performing at a higher level than Winnipeg's 12th forward or sixth defenceman would have been an upgrade to the talent pool.
Edmonton built various forms of salary-cap prison from drafting McDavid in 2015 through its back-to-back Cup finals. As it's escaped from inefficient money spent on Milan Lucic, Jack Campbell, Mikko Koskinen and company, it's thrown more and more darts — not all of them sensible — in the name of building a roster that can win when McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are on the bench, too.
The misconception about Edmonton is that the Oilers didn't attain their level of success because McDavid and Draisaitl cost too much money. The reality is that the Oilers wasted years with a brutally cap-inefficient middle class. Now that Edmonton's non-superstars are finally winning their minutes, the Oilers are a contender.
An update on the Oilers' 5v5 goal differential without McDavid and Draisaitl. Incredible. pic.twitter.com/hS3imZNNkK
— Sid 🇨🇦 (@NHL_Sid) May 30, 2025
These numbers track with Florida's performance without its top two centres, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett, on the way to the Panthers' 2024 Cup win. Yes, one takeaway on everybody's minds when it comes to Edmonton and Florida is 'acquire superstars.' But Winnipeg got outscored 17-5 at five-on-five without Mark Scheifele or Adam Lowry on the ice during these playoffs.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, superstars are hard to come by, while depth players can be approached with trial, error and creativity. The Oilers pulled off three-team trades in consecutive seasons to find the cap room for Adam Henrique and Trent Frederic. The Panthers signed Carter Verhaeghe for $1 million in 2020 after Tampa Bay didn't give him a qualifying offer, and picked Gustav Forsling off waivers for free in 2021.
If they hadn't worked, they'd be gone.
The Oilers have also taken swings at Viktor Arvidsson, Henrique, Connor Brown, Jeff Skinner, Corey Perry and John Klingberg in recent seasons. Not all of them have hit at a high level, nor did they come without cost; Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg signed offer sheets in St. Louis that the Oilers couldn't match. But it's another case of a desperate team acquiring players by any means available — and being fully prepared to move on if they didn't work out.
Only four Panthers who have played in these playoffs were Florida draft picks. Winnipeg had 10, from Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck at the top of the roster through backup goaltender Eric Comrie.
Does this mean the Jets draft well and the Panthers are free-agent poachers, basking in Floridian sunshine?
Not at all. Just ask Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt, Devon Levi, Spencer Knight and Emil Heineman. All of these were Panthers picks, with NHL careers ranging from dominant to nonexistent, who Florida moved to acquire Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Seth Jones and Bennett. The goalies stand out — two budding stars, each traded before establishing themselves as a starter — as does Florida's willingness to move on from a 115-point scorer like Huberdeau. In Jets terms, the Tkachuk acquisition was akin to sending Kyle Connor and Dylan Samberg away and ending up with the most important player in the trade. Winnipeg would never dream of it — nor would the Jets have been an option for Tkachuk, whose list of preferred teams included Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina and St. Louis.
It must burn Panthers management that the team drafted as well as it did and stepped up like it did, making the final in back-to-back-to-back years after such a bold move — only for people to scream 'state tax.'
The NHL's recent obsession with state tax rates is shortsighted. By virtue of no state income tax, Florida, Tampa Bay, Vegas, Dallas and Nashville do enjoy a slight competitive advantage, but the first 14 Cup champions of the cap era didn't share that same edge. This includes the Kings and Ducks, who are meant to be at the biggest disadvantage, given California's income tax rates, but they won three Cups in eight years, all the same.
Advertisement
This is not the same thing as saying taxes have no influence on players' decision-making, but the Panthers have 11 UFA signees on their roster. Of those, the biggest impacts come from Sergei Bobrovsky — a clear win — and then Verhaeghe, who they picked up for $1 million, and Evan Rodrigues, who they got for $3 million. This is not a case of a team running rampant through the free-agency market, nor are we meant to believe that the Panthers' 11 UFA signees are the only good players available in the NHL.
The Jets do not have Floridian sunshine, surf or tax advantages, nor do players disappear into anonymity in Winnipeg the way they do in bigger American markets. On the opposite side of the same coin, the Jets do boast Winnipeg's tight-knit community. They do benefit from stable ownership that gets the emotional moments right. It builds community when True North makes the decisions to charter Jets players and staff to Kitchener to attend Brad Scheifele's funeral — and to do the same for Minnesotan players for Adam Johnson — or gets less tragic, personal details right, like making time for Schenn to see his family during road trips. It builds community when a guy like Alex Iafallo arrives from Los Angeles to find a group of Jets stars like Hellebuyck and Connor, who spend almost as much time outdoors as he does.
If Winnipeg is small, then it can be tight-knit. If its top players decompress in an icefishing shack, then it can be a top destination for players who love the outdoors. If it is loyal to a fault, then it is a place where career Jets like Hellebuyck, Scheifele and Lowry can establish unique legacies. There is no salary cap for efforts made to make players' families feel at home.
The Jets do appear to have their room in order, with team culture as a strength. Does this give them the opportunity to sign Samberg, Perfetti and Vilardi to long-term deals that age well as the cap rises, continuing team culture while giving Winnipeg tangible advantages? It's worked for Scheifele, Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers, Hellebuyck, Lowry and Josh Morrissey when they were restricted free agents. It also seems to be an advantage now that Jonathan Toews is a UFA — if the 37-year-old Toews can achieve a level of performance that helps in a middle-six role.
(Photo of Gabriel Vilardi and Connor McDavid: Codie McLachlan / Getty Images)