Lakeshore Lightning U11 Girls Honoured for Winning Good Deeds Cup and Donating $100,000 Prize
The Lakeshore Lightning U11 White Girls Hockey Team was honoured in a heartwarming celebration this week for their incredible achievement as national winners of the 2024 Good Deeds Cup, a Canada-wide initiative recognizing youth hockey teams for their positive impact in their communities.
In an extraordinary display of generosity, the team chose to donate their $100,000 grand prize to Play for the Cure, a cancer research fundraising initiative supported by the Canadian Cancer Society. Their donation marks one of the largest youth-led contributions in the program's history.
The celebration event, hosted in Lakeshore, was capped off with a live performance by acclaimed local musician Christian Vegh, who was recently recognized as one of six recipients at the 2024 Mayor's Art Awards. Vegh's music added a festive tone to the evening as the young athletes were praised not only for their on-ice achievements, but for embodying leadership, compassion, and community spirit.
The Good Deeds Cup is an annual competition organized by Hockey Canada and sponsored by Chevrolet, aiming to inspire young athletes to make a difference beyond the rink. The Lakeshore Lightning's victory followed a heartfelt campaign that spotlighted their commitment to giving back.
Parents, coaches, local dignitaries, and supporters packed the venue to show their admiration for the team's selfless act and to celebrate a group of young girls who have become role models in the Lakeshore community—and beyond.
Their story continues to inspire, showing that the true meaning of victory lies in the power of giving.
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New York Times
26 minutes ago
- New York Times
Canucks notebook: Abbotsford coach Manny Malhotra's success, winger Jonathan Lekkerimäki's playoff struggles
It's a notable silver lining in what's been a trying, difficult year for the Vancouver Canucks franchise. On Friday night, the Abbotsford Canucks, Vancouver's American League affiliate and top minor league club, will face a buzzsaw Charlotte Checkers in the franchise's first-ever appearance in the Calder Cup Finals. Advertisement The Checkers, who advanced to the finals in just 10 total games, have home ice advantage in the series and are narrowly favoured to win in the outright markets. To do it, though, they'll have to defeat an overachieving, hard-working, deep and well-coached Abbotsford that's been building toward this moment patiently and with discipline since relocating from Utica, N.Y., to the Fraser Valley in the spring of 2021. How did Abbotsford get here? How did Manny Malhotra pull this off in his first season as a professional head coach? And what comes next for some of the best young players on this team? Let's open the notebook and set up the Calder Cup Finals. Given the Vancouver market's obsession with NHL-level hockey, the on-ice success the club has manufactured, and a significant change in the organization's approach to its top farm team, Abbotsford, has largely flown under the radar. In truth, it's been somewhat fascinating to watch. When the club operated in Utica, in partnership with president Robert Esche, the Utica Comets developed a reputation for being a scrappy but underfunded outfit with diehard fan support in the Mohawk Valley. Utica enjoyed some intermittent on-ice success, like when Travis Green and Jacob Markstrom led the club to the Calder Cup Finals in 2015, but the roster was often pieced together with tryout players and the like. The American League, in contrast with the NHL, isn't capped. Come playoff time, Utica could bump into a Toronto Marlies squad, where the Comets' combined roster salaries totalled a sum less than what the Marlies were icing on their first power-play unit. When Utica first relocated to the Fraser Valley at the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2021 season, things suddenly changed. Challenged with effectively building an American League team from scratch, with little in the way of in-house prospect depth to speak of, general manager Ryan Johnson and the organization signed nearly a dozen American League veterans. Advertisement The goal was to make a splash in a new marketplace, one that had a difficult history with American League hockey. The approach of building an expensive, veteran-laden roster, however, was also driven by necessity. The club didn't have enough developmental prospects to properly staff a competitive roster. Over the past few years, as Abbotsford has churned through coaches and knocked on the door as a consistent American League playoff team, that's begun to change. And it's in part because of the team's deliberate approach to sign high-scoring, undrafted Western Hockey League players, including Abbotsford captain Chase Wouters, and pest forward Tristen Nielsen (who has since signed an NHL-level standard player contract). With a push to acquire free agents out of Europe, the collegiate ranks and the CHL, Abbotsford has slowly but surely developed a nucleus of younger, cost-controlled players who have formed this team and pushed its way to the finals. More than any other factor driving this run, a group of mid-20s NHL prospects highlighted by Arshdeep Bains, Linus Karlsson, Max Sasson and Artūrs Šilovs, all of whom have played more than 100 games with Abbotsford over the past few years, have bound together and, in the organization's view, decided to pursue this long run in business-like fashion. Culturally, there's a real sense of honesty and self-awareness at the core of how this team has forged its identity. An understanding that everyone in the American League's goal is to work their way to the bigger stage. To get out. Explicitly, that's the big-picture goal. The point of all this is to learn and improve. To get better, to graduate and ultimately to leave. There's a notion that if you're still here in four or five years, and this standard applies to everybody in the organization, from coaches to equipment staff to the players themselves, then the organization hasn't succeeded. Advertisement Somewhere throughout this season, the honest, business-like mentality has congealed into something resilient. A deep team focused on the day-to-day routine and the workmanlike rhythms of trying to graduate from the American Hockey League, the pressure of playing an elimination game or facing a third-period deficit has appeared to melt away. 'Forget the result (of this finals),' Johnson told The Athletic this week, when asked if he has any expectations for his group as they prepare to play the biggest games in Abbotsford's history. 'I expect this team to leave it all out there. And they have throughout this entire run. … 'Honestly, I wouldn't say I have a ton of expectations, though. It's just about staying the course and doing what we've talked about from day one of the regular season. … If it's not enough, it's not enough, but at the end of the day, what this group has decided to do is to go for it. And I know they will.' Playoff Diaries: Western Conference Finals Game 6 🎥 Abbotsford advances to the Calder Cup Finals for the first time in franchise history! — X – Abbotsford Canucks (@abbycanucks) June 10, 2025 When an American League team succeeds at this level, it tends to garner some attention from the industry at large. Calder Cup playoff success results in players being more marketable as free agents and in the departure of coaches. That's especially true when the coaches in question are highly regarded, thoughtful and charismatic, the way first-year bench boss Malhotra has proven to be during stints as an assistant coach in Vancouver and Toronto, and over his first full year as a head coach in the Fraser Valley. It hasn't always been a smooth process. A coach serves as something of a metronome for a hockey team, setting schedules, dealing with travel planning and doing an awful lot of work beyond the day-to-day grind of preparing a team. Until you've been through a full cycle, there are a million little things that you can't possibly know until you've experienced them. It's little details like not scheduling special teams meetings and practices for early in the week, because in the American League, an injury at the NHL level in a Thursday night game might, and probably will, alter your gameplan that weekend when your best player is called up to dress for the big club as an injury replacement. Advertisement Even beyond finding his voice and vision as a head coach, Malhotra had to undergo a crash course in all of that this season. And the results have been tremendous. In addition to the success of his approach on the ice, Malhotra's first season in Abbotsford has been accompanied by a significant appreciation for the flow and energy level of his practices. It's a factor that the club has come to prize internally, but has also been noted by various agents representing players at the AHL level. 'Manny's commitment to the process and consistency, his practice delivery and attention to detail day to day, it isn't just about winning hockey games,' said Johnson. 'It's about getting down to our process. It's about professionalism and the quality of our players as teammates. 'Manny felt if he got that down, then the rest would follow. And this run is a result of those things.' In the process, Malhotra, who was a finalist to succeed Rick Tocchet before the Canucks opted to hire Adam Foote, has put himself squarely on the map as a top candidate in the next NHL head-coaching hiring cycle. And maybe even sooner. There are only nine left-handed defenseman under six feet who appeared in over 50 NHL games this past season. And many of the shorter, left-handed defenders in the NHL, like Quinn Hughes, Lane Hutson and Shayne Gostisbehere, are high-scoring offensive defenders. Mainstays on the power play. They're one-man breakout machines and attacking engines from the back end, generally speaking. There are a few exceptions; players like Dmitry Orlov, Matt Grzelcyk and Samuel Girard are the rare breed of defensive-minded, shorter left-handed defenders. They're the exceptions that prove the rule, however. A 2022 seventh-round draft pick, first-year professional defender Kirill Kudryavtsev has already overcome long odds to make it this far. He's enjoyed a strong first professional season, even earning a call-up to the NHL down the stretch. Advertisement What Kudryavtsev has done for Abbotsford in the playoffs, however, is altogether different. He's been Abbotsford's best two-way defender, helping the Canucks outscore their opponents by a lopsided margin in his five-on-five minutes on their run through the Western Conference. It's the sort of breakout performance that can change how a player is perceived by their organization and by the wider industry. Rare profile or not, there's something real there in Kudryavtsev. Throughout the playoffs, Abbotsford's best players have been fringe NHL-level players in their mid-20s, like Sasson, Bains and Victor Mancini. Vancouver's younger, higher pedigree prospects, aside from Kudryavtsev, have mostly been peripheral to Abbotsford's playoff success. In the case of top blue-line prospect Tom Willander, his absence has been business-related. He's missed out on this playoff run due to a protracted contractual standoff following his graduation from Boston University. Aatu Räty has been limited by injury, appearing in just six of Abbotsford's 18 playoff games. Meanwhile, promising young forward Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who captured the imagination of Canucks fans with his 24-game run at the NHL-level this season, has been a regular healthy scratch as the club approaches the finals. He's struggled to manufacture offence or shots at the same auspicious rate he managed during the regular season. A rocket from Lekker! 🚀 Jonathan Lekkerimäki's first NHL goal is the first RE/MAX Canada Move of the Week! — Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 18, 2024 Despite Lekkerimäki's playoff struggles, his first professional season in North America should be regarded as a mostly unqualified success. As a 20-year-old player, he scored at the rate you'd hope to see from a future top-six forward at the NHL level and didn't look out of place in the NHL when he got a look there. Advertisement That he hasn't been at his best in the Calder Cup playoffs, truthfully, hints at the ground that Lekkerimäki still has to develop physically enough to be an impactful NHL-level goal scorer. While he is a strong skater, he's not NHL-level fast at this stage of his career. There's no technical reason that he can't be, in time, but he'll need to build considerable, functional core strength to improve his power and top speed as a skater. Lekkerimäki is an undersized player and doesn't yet have the strength to cut back or protect the puck along the wall the way most undersized forwards — the Canucks' Conor Garland and Nils Höglander are potent examples of this — need to to succeed in the NHL. For whatever reason, Lekkerimäki has hit a wall in the Calder Cup playoffs. There are lessons for him and the Canucks in that, but it shouldn't be viewed as a concern that would adjust how we rate Lekkerimäki and his progress. This is a gifted player with a couple of NHL-ready traits, including his perimeter shooting skill, and his nuance and skill on the flank with the man advantage, and a lot of work is needed to enhance his physical development if he hopes to succeed during the toughest time of year in the American League. And eventually as a full-time top-six contributor at the NHL level.
New York Times
27 minutes ago
- New York Times
After another Stanley Cup Final goalie benching, NHL netminders discuss the dreaded yank: ‘A brutal feeling'
The Edmonton Oilers' comeback in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final was electrifying. It was incredible for the Oilers, who looked headed for a 3-1 series hole after an abysmal first period and instead will return home for Game 5 with the series tied. It was incredible for Leon Draisaitl, who added to his legend by scoring his second overtime winner of this Cup Final alone, sending Edmonton to a 5-4 victory. It was incredible for the thousands of Oilers faithful back in Edmonton, who partied well into Thursday night outside of Rogers Place. Advertisement There is one player for whom it was less incredible, though. Goaltender Stuart Skinner was the biggest reason this miraculous comeback was even possible in the first place. He made several key saves in the first period while the Panthers dominated over the first 20 minutes. He was the Oilers' best player, standing tall in the crease to keep the deficit to only three goals. His reward? One of the most embarrassing moments any goalie will face: the dreaded yank. Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch spared Skinner the usual skate of shame, benching him for good during the second intermission after Skinner allowed three goals on 17 shots. It was the second straight game Knoblauch pulled Skinner from the net in favor of backup Calvin Pickard, and the third time he's done so this postseason. 'It's unfortunate for Stu to be pulled there,' Knoblauch said after the game. 'Our team was flat. We didn't give him any opportunities, again taking three penalties in the first period. Unfortunately we needed to change things up, and the change was great.' It's hard to lay much blame at Skinner's skates for the three goals he allowed (we'll go over that in more detail later). Rather, the decision was made to 'spark' a team that was getting thoroughly outplayed for the fourth straight period. It helps that the backup happens to be undefeated this posteason, and this time it seemed to work – to the tune of four unanswered Edmonton goals. Would the Oilers have re-focused after the intermission, and rallied for the win with Skinner still in net? We'll never know, but Pickard seems to think so. 'I felt for (Skinner) today,' Pickard said after the win. 'He came ready to play today and made some big saves early, we just didn't have it as a team early. I think (Knoblauch) just wanted to switch it up. If he was playing behind our team in the second, third and overtime he would've done what I did too.' Advertisement No goalie is immune to the yank, whether performance-related or not. Skinner hasn't played great this postseason with a .894 save percentage, but every netminder experiences it. Many times, it's through no fault of their own. It's a unique situation that unfairly punishes a player for the good of the team, but it's nothing new. Coaches have been doing it for decades, and likely will for decades to come. We thought it would be interesting to pick goalies' brains on the subject, so we asked a couple NHL netminders for their insight into the odd dynamic that has already unfolded multiple times in the Cup Final, and famously in the Western Conference Finals between Dallas and Edmonton. 'From a goalie perspective, the bottom line is you never want to get pulled,' Washington Capitals goalie Charlie Lindgren said. 'It's embarrassing. It's a brutal feeling. You always feel like you want to keep battling back.' Sometimes the pull comes because the goalie himself doesn't have his best that night, and the coach thinks a switch gives his team the best chance to get saves. That, along with giving Pickard a chance to knock some rust off after his injury, likely motivated Knoblauch to pull Skinner in Game 3. Sometimes, though, the yank is to simply send a message to the rest of the team. 'It's never easy to be the guy who's coming out of the net and the night's over with,' Lindgren said. 'That's not a fun thing to go through. Instinctually, especially for goalies at this level, there's so much heart, so much battle and so much compete. You always think that the next shot is going to be yours. You're going to find a way to keep your team in it.' Skinner was doing that on Thursday night: keeping his team in it. He made several great saves in the opening 20 minutes, and none of the goals he allowed were particularly soft. Advertisement The first was a screened shot by Florida's Matthew Tkachuk on a 5-on-3 power play from less than 20 feet away. Skinner wasn't able to see the release as he scrambled to look around two of his own players and Aleksander Barkov in front, and the save would've been tough even if he had. It's fair to criticize Skinner's rebound control on the second goal, as a shot spilled off his chest protector to Tkachuk's waiting stick in front of the net. But it was also a hard shot from point-blank range, and human reaction time has its limitations. I'd argue that on a shot from that spot, it's on the goalie to make the initial save and on the defenders to clean up the rebound, which Tkachuk instead netted for his second goal of the night. The third goal was a one-timer by Anton Lundell on the doorstep on a pass from behind the goal. There wasn't much Skinner could do on that other than what he did: gain depth, make himself big and seal any holes. Lundell placed the shot outside of Skinner's blocker and inside the left post. Having said all of that, the decision clearly worked. Pickard was good, as he's been all postseason, stopping 22 of the 23 shots he faced. He made a few timely saves — none bigger than a massive glove stop on Sam Bennett in overtime, clipping just enough of the puck to redirect the it into the crossbar moments before Draisaitl scored the winner. But Pickard wasn't the difference in the game after the goalie swap. The Oilers looked like a completely different team over the final 51 minutes. In the first period Florida held commanding edges shots (17-7), scoring chances (22-5) and high-danger chances (13-2) according to Natural Stat Trick. In the final 51 minutes Edmonton flipped that, outshooting the Panthers 28-23, and out-chancing them 20-10. 'We wanted to come out strong tonight, but they put us on our heels early and we were kind of lollygagging around a little bit,' Draisaitl said. Why professional players were 'lollygagging around' in the first period of a Stanley Cup Final game is an entirely different topic for another story. One thing is clear, though: Coaches believe benching their goalie sends a message to the team that can only be accomplished by such a drastic measure. The coach could easily sit the players in front of Skinner – the ones who were lollygagging – for a shift or two, but it doesn't have the same jarring effect. Advertisement 'When the goalie comes out, and he was the guy who started the game, and you're expecting to be a rock back there,' Lindgren explained. 'When he gets pulled it's a wake up call. You know your backup is going in. He's probably cold. He probably wasn't expecting to play. So it gives the players even more reason to sharpen up and better themselves.' Lindgren's goalie partner in Washington, Logan Thompson, agreed. 'You're sending a message,' Thompson said. '(The starter) has been your go-to guy and he's gotten you to this point. I think it's a 'holy s—' moment for the rest of the guys saying, 'He's not going to bail us out tonight. We need to change something about us. We're clearly not helping him out.' ' An NHL goalie typically knows when the pull is due to his own play. He is well aware of which goals he should've stopped, and which ones he did everything in his process correctly, but still gave up. 'As the game is going on you usually have an idea of how you're playing and the quality of goals you're giving up,' Lindgren said. Even with that understanding, goalies are hyper-competitive and hate being removed from the game in most cases. 'I think every goalie takes the blame when they get pulled, just knowing the nature of how competitive we are,' Thompson said. 'Most goalies always think they can do more or do better.' In the case of Thursday's Game 4 in Florida, the move worked to perfection. Pickard wasn't asked to do much for the majority of his 51 minutes in the crease, but he made timely saves and improved to 6-0 in the playoffs. There are plenty of cases in which it doesn't work. Look no further than Pete DeBoer's decision to pull Jake Oettinger from Game 5 of the Western Conference Final after allowing two goals that clearly weren't on him. Backup Casey DeSmith gave up another goal less than a minute after being thrown into the crease cold, and Dallas' season ended – as did DeBoer's tenure as their coach days later. Advertisement It's such an interesting concept. In the vast majority of cases, the coach is choosing to tab an inferior player at one of the most important positions in order to play a psychological trick on the rest of the team. Even the goalies – who are obviously more opposed to the idea than most – can see the potential merit. 'I think there is probably a time and place for it,' Lindgren said. 'If the team is playing lackadaisical and maybe the effort isn't there or they're hanging the goalie out to dry, then I could see (how) getting him out of there … would shake up and wake up the team a little bit. I've seen it happen. There are definitely times where that has worked.' There are also ways the process could be improved – namely involving the goalie coach, or even the goalie himself, more in the decision. Every situation is unique, but Thompson said he's never been consulted on a possible pull during the game. Some teams empower the goalie coach more than others, but there's no question they should have a say, considering the uniqueness of the position and the goalie coach's expertise. In the end, though, it's always the head coach's call. He assumes all of the risk, and the reward. Sometimes, as with DeBoer, it's the last big call he makes on that team's bench. Sometimes it sparks the team to a thrilling comeback to even the series in the Stanley Cup Final. (Photo of Pickard, left, and Skinner after Game 4: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
New York Times
36 minutes ago
- New York Times
With Nikolaj Ehlers' future uncertain, looking back at how 7 famous Jets exits worked out
If Nikolaj Ehlers signs with another team on July 1, his Winnipeg Jets exit won't be the most dramatic, most acrimonious or most needed departure in Winnipeg's history. But Ehlers' role as a Jet has been the subject of discussion for several years in a row. His ice time in the playoffs — ninth among Jets forwards at five-on-five, but fifth overall, thanks to the power play — followed a regular season that saw Ehlers play the eighth most minutes per game of his 10-season NHL career. Advertisement Did the Jets leave results on the table? More pressing: Is Ehlers about to sign in New York or Carolina or New Jersey, receive first-line minutes and deliver results that make the Jets regret his departure? There are several famous Jets comparables, from Ehlers' good buddy Patrik Laine to Jacob Trouba, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Blake Wheeler — among others — who have left Winnipeg for what seemed like greener pastures. It didn't always work out for them. Still, there are cases where players left Winnipeg, picked up a few extra minutes per night along the way and took the next step in their career. Today, we dig deeper into Winnipeg's most famous exits, what happened to them and what it could mean for Ehlers should the UFA market win him over on July 1. Patrik Laine was Winnipeg's own, delightfully chaotic, 'Fortnite' playing bundle of dryly comedic energy. He arrived in 2016 via a draft lottery win, with the Jets moving from sixth to second overall, and then scored 80 goals as a teenager. He adored Winnipeg and seemed to be meant for stardom — if not as an all-around play driver, then at least as a one-shot scorer — but ultimately asked for a trade in 2021. With Winnipeg: Laine was mostly a second-line right wing, while playing a key role on the Jets' top power-play unit. His best work came in 2017-18, back when Wheeler had Laine, Mark Scheifele and Dustin Byfuglien as three right-shooting one-timer options on Winnipeg's power play. After a rookie season spent primarily on Scheifele's wing, Laine spent a lot of time with Bryan Little and Ehlers, with Paul Stastny making a 2017-18 cameo. Laine got a bigger push in 2019-20, when he got the third-most minutes among Jets forwards — at five-on-five and overall, too. With 63 points in 68 games, it seemed as though Laine had truly arrived. Advertisement With Columbus: Laine started off as a second-line right wing, but struggled out of the gate at five-on-five. His second and third seasons with the Blue Jackets were exceptional, though — first-line minutes, Laine's first point-per-game season, and the two most productive points-per-minute seasons of his career. His power-play production was volatile, depending on his goal scoring and suffering with respect to playmaking and puck retention. His five-on-five ice time in Columbus never quite matched that of Laine's final year in Winnipeg, but he played a big role through most of his tenure. Outlook: Laine entered the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program in January 2024. In August 2024, Columbus traded Laine to Montreal (at his request), where he seems to be revitalizing his career. Montreal deployed him as a power-play specialist to tremendous results, limiting him to the 10th-most five-on-five minutes among regularly used Canadiens forwards, and he shot out the lights with that power-play usage. Was the grass greener outside of Winnipeg? No, then maybe, then no. Laine is not on the path of stardom once anticipated for him. There are legitimate caveats available (in addition to a slew of injuries, Laine stepped away from hockey in 2024 to focus on his mental health) and it's clear the 27-year-old can still produce points in the right contexts. The Canadiens are deploying him as a third-line forward/power-play specialist. Looking back, Laine's workload peaked at 19:25 per game in his final year with the Jets — roughly four more minutes than Ehlers got this season. Laine was young enough to bank on continued development, but Ehlers could gain ground in terms of opportunity. Pierre-Luc Dubois was meant to get the Jets out of their Laine jam. For a minute there, it even seemed to work: Dubois struggled in 2021 but scored 60, then 63 points in his next two seasons. There were times when he outplayed Scheifele and times when he seemed to disappear altogether. In the end, his disinterest in signing with Winnipeg cost him a pretty good gig, while the Jets are still looking for his replacement. With Winnipeg: Dubois' first partial season in Winnipeg was a poor one, with a two-week quarantine followed by two injuries. He spent the next two years playing the role of second-line centre — sometimes excelling, sometimes going cold to the point of being completely ineffective. It was important that he move on; remember that, along with the inconsistency, Dubois delivered two of Winnipeg's best seasons by a second-line centre ever. Little was a 64-point 1C prior to Scheifele's emergence and a 40-50 point 2C afterward; Stastny signed in Vegas; Vladislav Namestnikov has scored 37 and 38 points in his last two seasons. Advertisement With Los Angeles: Dubois was so underwhelming, producing just 40 points in 82 games, that the Kings traded him to Washington before his no-movement clause kicked in. It seemed as though getting everything he ever wanted let the air out of Dubois as a player; the consensus analysis piled on the Capitals for acquiring him as opposed to recognizing their low-cost acquisition of a still-viable player. Outlook: Getting out of Winnipeg was not the answer. Dubois was a markedly better Jet than he was a King. He's found a great fit in Washington, revitalizing his game and scoring a career-high 66 points and dramatically outscoring his opponents on a line with Connor McMichael and Tom Wilson. It's not out of line to think he could have done the same playing between Perfetti and Ehlers — let's not get carried away calling Dubois' resurgence a total shock — but it's clear Winnipeg got as much out of Dubois as was possible. Was the grass greener outside of Winnipeg? No. It was not green at all in Los Angeles, but Dubois has found himself again in Washington. Jack Roslovic was packaged with Laine in the trade for Dubois. He was an afterthought at first, given Laine and Dubois' pedigree, but Roslovic made the smoothest transition of all three players. His role has grown the most since Winnipeg — which makes sense, given his youth, the Jets' depth and his difficulty finding minutes early on in his career. With Winnipeg: In his final Jets season, Roslovic scored 12 goals, 17 assists, for 29 points in 71 games, finally getting a full season's worth of middle-six deployment. His 13:10 per game at five-on-five — more than Ehlers got this season — was a dramatic increase in his nightly workload after getting buried by Winnipeg's depth in his previous two seasons. The problem, if you were looking for an instant return, was that his scoring rate marched in place despite playing with Ehlers and Wheeler more than any other teammates. He asked for a trade and got one — to his hometown, where he was meant to flourish. With Columbus: Roslovic flourished. He scored at a 49-point-per-82-game pace over four seasons, backing up his inflated usage on a worse Blue Jackets team with legitimate offence. The same questions persisted: Was he best at centre or at wing? Could he drive a line or was he a complementary piece? Roslovic contributed like a middle-six scorer throughout his time with Columbus and again for Carolina this season. Outlook: He's what Winnipeg drafted him to be, achieving the middle-six potential we saw in short doses during his Jets tenure. The grass was greener for him — first in his hometown, now with Carolina — although it's tough to argue with his usage in that final Jets season. (Roslovic's ice time was paltry before that, but there are concessions available based on the sheer depth of the 2017-18 and 2018-19 Jets teams.) Advertisement Was the grass greener outside of Winnipeg? Yes. Roslovic is a good example in favour of 'more minutes equals more points' for most players. With Winnipeg: Trouba was a top-pairing defenceman who received a 2018-19 promotion to the top power-play unit in the wake of injuries to Byfuglien and Josh Morrissey. He'd always been a productive five-on-five defenceman but added 18 power-play points, scoring 50 points in total. Continued power play success was never a good bet, but Trouba had been a productive even-strength defenceman for several years. The Jets' version of Trouba was an above-average top-four defenceman, even when Byfuglien was healthy and manning the top power-play unit. With New York: Trouba struggled early and late in his Rangers career, with a pair of good top-four seasons sandwiched between multiple seasons of getting outchanced and outscored. He emerged as a violent physical threat in New York, which is an element that is missing from the Jets lineup — and had one great season, results-wise, wherein the Rangers won his minutes by 15 goals. Most often, though, Trouba's pairings were outchanced and outscored over the course of his Rangers tenure. Outlook: It's not that Trouba's performance fell off a cliff in New York. We always knew that he was out of his element playing PP1, as he did prior to the Jets trading him. Still, Winnipeg got Trouba's best year in terms of points (50) and his three best years in terms of shot attempts and expected goals. Trouba's best on-ice situation was playing alongside Morrissey on the Jets — this much is clear — even if he preferred to live in the U.S. Was the grass greener outside of Winnipeg? No. Paul Stastny was acquired at the 2018 trade deadline and became an instant fan favourite, playing defensive conscience for Laine and Ehlers while contributing to the Jets' top power play. The Jets tried to re-sign him in the offseason, thinking themselves set with Scheifele, Stastny, Little and Lowry down the middle, but Stastny chose Las Vegas instead. Two years later, Winnipeg traded for him again — this time, from the Golden Knights — with lower expectations now that he was 36 years old. With Winnipeg: Stastny was a stretch run and postseason darling, scoring the goal that beat Nashville in Game 7 among 15 points in 17 playoff games. His friendship with Wheeler made him an instant cultural fit, while he appeared to fit seamlessly on the Jets' top power play, taking rookie Kyle Connor's interchange spot and adding a few tricks of his own. With Vegas: Stastny scored at a 63-point pace in his first season with the Golden Knights, which seemed to justify Winnipeg's efforts to sign him. An injury limited him to 50 games, however, and his point production fell off the following year. It's oversimplistic to suggest he played poorly in his 38-point, 71-game sophomore effort with the Golden Knights — Stastny, Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty dominated the flow of play without finishing their scoring chances — but he was clearly on the downswing when he arrived in Winnipeg for his second stint. Advertisement Outlook: The Jets were right to want Stastny back in 2018 and he continued to find ways to contribute further down the lineup in his late-career encore. The grass was a little bit greener — he made the Western Conference final in the 2020 bubble — but Stastny's own performance matched the quality he'd reached in Winnipeg. His role was almost identical to the one he'd played in Winnipeg and in St. Louis before that. Was the grass greener outside of Winnipeg? A little bit, via those 2020 playoffs, but nothing to worry about if you're a Jets fan. Blake Wheeler was one of the world's best five-on-five players for nearly a decade, consistently outplaying more famous competition without earning league-wide recognition. Wheeler was Winnipeg's captain for six seasons and, thanks to a power-play explosion quarterbacking the Connor/Scheifele/Laine/Byfuglien unit, he became a 91-point player — twice — before age caught up to him. His brash, sometimes top-down leadership approach served him well until it didn't. His later years are marked by dressing-room conflict, struggles to integrate youth and the eventual removal of his captaincy. He was bought out in 2023 and played his final season for the Rangers. With Winnipeg: Wheeler was everything for Winnipeg for a lot of years. In the year prior to his departure, he was 36 years old and clearly on the downswing, with second-line usage at five-on-five to go with a key role on a struggling power play. Even then, he maintained a 1.85 points per 60 minutes at five-on-five — good by second-line standards, but the third-worst production rate of his career. With New York: To Wheeler's credit, his 1.64 points per 60 minutes at five-on-five in New York was slightly above average for NHL forwards — while doubling as the worst production rate of his career. His ice and impact continued to decline, playing 11:29 per game at five-on-five while getting second-unit power-play duties. His scoring rate dropped on the power play, too, which makes sense moving from Connor and Scheifele to Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafrenière. Outlook: It's clear that Winnipeg had greater use for Wheeler's skill set than New York did. It seems reasonable to guess that his status in Winnipeg led to more first-unit power-play time — his last Jets season was among his worst in terms of power-play production — but his usage had started to drop there, too. It could be a case of a veteran losing clout with a new team; it could simply be that Wheeler's time had come. He played fewer minutes in his final season than Ehlers has at any point in his career. Was the grass greener outside of Winnipeg? No. With Winnipeg: ⭐ Since Winnipeg: 🎣 (Top photo of Nikolaj Ehlers and Pierre-Luc Dubois: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
