Here’s every NHL team’s player to watch break out this year
By Paul Grant
Winnipeg Jets: Jack Roslovic
It was nice to see those Jets go almost all the way last season, wasn’t it? Coach Paul Maurice, who’s been coaching in the league seemingly forever (he actually coached the Hartford Whalers!), got his best chance to return to the Stanley Cup finals, where he took the Hurricanes in 2002 before losing to the Red Wings.
To get to the Western Conference finals (where they lost to the Cinderella Golden Knights), most of the Jets’ roster last season had breakout years: Blake Wheeler, Nikolaj Ehlers, Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Connor Hellebuyck. And to get back there, those players (plus steady sniper Patrik Laine and solid D-man Dustin Byfuglien) need to continue where they left off.
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But the Jets will also need a boost from a breakout player, and that breakout player is going to be Jack Roslovic, 21. A first-rounder by the Jets in 2015, Roslovic could sneak his way into the top nine either as a center or a winger, given the aging of Bryan Little and the departure of Paul Stastny.
Some are even speculating that Roslovic has the cheese to get into the top six, which would put him between Laine and Ehlers. That might be pushing it a tad, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility should injuries brought on by last season’s long run into the conference finals decimate the forward corps. Either way, Roslovic is good to go.