Biggest winners and losers of NHL free agency 2018
Loser: Winnipeg Jets
Since the revival of the Winnipeg Jets franchise in 2011-12, Kevin Cheveldayoff has been the team’s general manager for every game.
In seven seasons so far, he has witnessed the Jets win a total of nine playoff games — all of which, came this past season.
To the luck of Cheveldayoff, he was not forced to give any of his young players raises this offseason as Patrick Laine and Kyle Connor are still both on entry-level contracts until next year. This, combined with the $5.75 million cap hit of Tobias Enstrom expiring, left Winnipeg with nearly $27 million to spend on roster players.
One of the first moves many anticipated the Jets to make was re-signing center Paul Stastny to a new deal. Unfortunately, this never occurred, as Stastny agreed to a three-year, $19.5 million contract with the Vegas Golden Knights.
After acquiring the services of Stastny at the 2018 trade deadline, the 32-year old put up 13 points in 19 games in the regular season. However, it was his performance in the playoffs that caught the attention of onlookers.
In 17 games during the postseason, Stastny had an additional 15 points and a plus/minus rating of plus-5, and scored six goals on an impressive 26.1 shooting percentage.
From a longterm perspective, it’s fair to assume Cheveldayoff was worried about adding another major caphit to his roster. Despite this, the smarter move still would have been to bring back Statsny and shed his or Mathieu Perrault’s salary via trade at a later time.
Moving on from Stastny, Winnipeg also lost goaltender Micheal Hutchinson, forward Matt Hendricks and recently had Jacob Trouba file for salary arbitration.
In five seasons with the Jets, Hutchinson had 43 wins, a 2.65 goals against average and a .910 save percentage.
If Winnipeg can make the postseason in consecutive years for the first time in the history of the franchise, this year’s free agency period won’t look so bad for the Jets. Regardless, fans of the team are sure to wonder how good their offense could have been if Stastny stuck around or the team found a suitable replacement. Sometimes, things don’t go your way. For Kevin Cheveldayoff, this July did not.