The Winnipeg Jets are Still Haunted by the Ghost of Paul Stastny
The Winnipeg Jets lost out on their main free agent target after having to trade for him in the middle of last season. And they still miss him.
The Winnipeg Jets tried to re-sign rental center Paul Stastny to a contract once he became a free agent, but he spurned them to sign a three year deal with the Vegas Golden Knights, the team that defeated them in the WCF.
He pulled a Kevin Durant, without, y’know, being the star of his team. The old, if you can’t beat em, join em. In all seriousness, they probably offered him more money.
Or, you know, it’s Vegas, baby. Factor in that they were in the Stanley Cup Finals as an expansion team, and Stastny had plenty of reason to like Vegas over Winnipeg. No hard feelings.
The only problem? The Jets haven’t been able to replace him. It’s not just this season, either. The team did not have a ton of roster turnover this off-season.
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But as you know, once they knew they were contenders last season, they went out at the trade deadline and filled their biggest hole, a number two center.
And then he left, and they haven’t been able to fill his void. There were hopes that Bryan Little would rebound, as he stayed healthy but put up the same amount of points he had been in ~50 games.
He’s been fine, again, but would be better suited to the third line. He just isn’t enough of a difference maker and the Jets need someone who does something really well centering the second line of the Stanley Cup hopefuls.
And Jack Roslovic was thought to come in and, if Little struggled, perhaps take to the pivot of the second line. Little is currently at a 39 point pace. So, you know, he’s not producing.
He’s a fine defender and not at all a bad player, but his cap hit is becoming more onerous by the day at $5.3 MM. And there’s five years left on a contract that’s looking more and more like we won’t see the end of.
As for Roslovic, the 22 year old has just three points (1G, 2A) in 18 games and has been mostly invisible, which isn’t the worst thing in the world. But it’s, uh, not great.
So this has left us where it left us about 10 months ago, wondering who the Winnipeg Jets could acquire to plug in at that second pivot.
Hey, Vegas is bad and Stastny is out for a couple months, but we can’t assume he would also have been hurt with the Jets. It does make a trade for him less likely than it already was.
I just don’t think Vegas will cut bait so soon, even if they are bad this year. There’s still time, this year and the next two.
The point is. He came, he filled a void (fairly well, too), and then he left too soon. And now the Winnipeg Jets are left trying to put the pieces back together and figure out who to stick behind Mark Scheifele.
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And I’d venture that we’ll get an answer to that question before the Winter is over.