Nate Thompson, Trevor Lewis, and Mathieu Perreault are all pending UFAs for the Winnipeg Jets. Here are our predictions on if the Jets will resign them.
The Winnipeg Jets still have a number of pending unrestricted free agents that are set to hit free agency on July 28, unless the Jets and players agree to new contracts before then.
This article focuses on three depth forwards that are heading for free agency and it is unclear whether they will sign a new deal with the Jets. Those players are Trevor Lewis, Nate Thompson, and Mathieu Perreault.
At the beginning of the office season, there was five remaining pending unrestricted free agent forwards but the list went down after Dominic Toninato signed a two-year deal last week. The other remaining forward is Paul Stastny, but we covered his contract situation on July 5 and you can read about Stastny’s situation by clicking the link here.
Here are our predictions on if the Winnipeg Jets will resign Thompson, Lewis, and Perreault:
3. Nate Thompson
To kick off our list we have an offseason signing from the last offseason. Back in early October of 2020, Winnipeg signed Nate Thompson to a one-year contract after playing the 2019-2020 season with the Canadiens and Flyers. Thompson started that season with the Montreal Canadiens and finished the season with the Philadelphia Flyers after a mid-season trade.
Thompson’s season got off to a slow start as he missed nearly a month during the early stages of the regular season with a lower-body injury.
The thirty-six-year-old, who has played for nine different franchises throughout his career, then played a depth role the rest of the season as the center of the Jets’ fourth line.
Thompson averaged only 9:41 of ice time per game, which was last on the roster among players that appeared in at least half of Winnipeg’s games.
During his 44 games played, Thompson had two goals, three assists, and a plus-four plus/minus while maintaining a 50.4 faceoff percentage.
We predict that Winnipeg will not resign Thompson and instead, the Jets will either look to sign a free agent to fill Thompson’s role or they will promote one of their prospects to this role.