Because of their 4-1 win over the Dallas Stars on Saturday afternoon the Winnipeg Jets improved their document to 14-1-0 to open the 2024-25 NHL season.
That document not solely provides them the very best document within the NHL by the primary month of the season, however it is usually the very best begin any workforce has ever had by 15 video games within the historical past of the league.
The Jets did win 52 video games a 12 months in the past and had among the finest information within the league, however plenty of that success was pushed by an MVP-caliber season from beginning goalie Connor Hellebuyck. He masked plenty of flaws the workforce had defensively and doubtless received a couple of extra video games than it in any other case would have received with a extra atypical goaltending efficiency.
The Jets have additionally been a fairly atypical workforce for the higher a part of the previous decade. They’re persistently ok to make the playoffs however by no means actually ok to make a severe run once they get there. They haven’t received a playoff sequence since 2020-21, and going again to the 2017-18 season they’ve received only a single playoff sequence throughout that stretch.
It was additionally a really quiet offseason for the Jets that noticed them deliver again largely the identical roster.
So the very fact they’ve stormed out of the gate and ripped off 14 wins in 15 video games is a bit stunning. There was an expectation they might — and would — be fairly good. No one anticipated them to be this good.
The driving pressure behind this begin, once more, is the play of Hellebuyck in objective. Regardless that he allowed one objective on Saturday, he stopped 96 consecutive pictures between targets and recorded back-to-back shutouts. He already has three shutouts in his first 12 begins and leads the NHL with a .936 save proportion.
He’s already a two-time Vezina Trophy winner and appears to be making a powerful early case to win a 3rd this season.
Together with Hellebuyck, the Jets even have some high-end gamers on the high of their lineup in forwards Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers and defenseman Josh Morrissey. Depth is a bit little bit of a priority, particularly on protection, however some All-Star caliber forwards and the very best goalie in hockey can take a workforce a good distance. Whether or not or not that’s far sufficient to win a Stanley Cup stays to be seen. No one in Winnipeg goes to argue with the outcomes to date this season.
