The Winnipeg Jets, in 2026-27, will attempt to rebound after regressing by 21 wins to miss the playoffs last season.
With training camp, preseason, and opening night all getting closer with each passing day, it’s worth taking a look at who might lead the team in various important statistical categories. Some leaders will likely be the same as last season, while others will top categories for the first time.
Goals: Kyle Connor
The longtime Jets sniper lit the lamp a team-leading 39 times last season for his eighth-career 30-plus goal campaign. The 29-year-old left winger has led the Jets in goals in six different seasons, so it’s not much of stretch to predict that the team’s highest-paid player will lead the team in goals again considering his track record and his first line and top power-play unit assignments.
Assists and Points: Mark Scheifele
Scheifele recorded a career-high 67 assists last season to lead the team in that category by 14 over Connor. The 67 apples were part of a monster campaign for the alternate captain and first-line centre where he put up a career-high 103 points and became the first 2.0 Jet to reach the 100-point plateau.
Like the Connor prediction, it’s not too much of a stretch to predict Scheifele will lead the team in assists and points again considering he appears to be only getting better at an age where most players start to slow down. He’s been an ultra-consistent offensive producer throughout his career, posting eight point-per-game-plus seasons.
Power-Play Goals: Gabriel Vilardi
Gabriel Vilardi has developed into a huge threat for the Jets in general and is coming off a season where he posted a career high 30 goals and 39 assists for 69 points over 82 games in a top-six role. However, he’s an especially potent threat on the power play.
The Jets have not had another player quite like the soon-to-be 27 year old, and there perhaps is not another player quite like him in the NHL. While he is not the fastest skater or a pure sniper, he is an extremely efficient scorer — almost all his goals come from within a few feet of the net — and has outrageous hands.
His wizardry around the net and his puck-handling ability in tight led to him potting a team-leading 13 power-play goals last season — one more than his 2024-25 total despite the Jets’ power-play efficiency dropping by 10 percentage points — from the net-front “facilitator” position. His presence there has translated into 53 total man-advantage points through his three seasons since being acquired from the Los Angeles Kings in June, 2023.
If the Jets’ power play can get back into the top half of the league after finishing 24th last season, Vilardi could improve his output to 15-plus goals.
Hits: Cole Koepke
Koepke proved to be a menace for opponents to deal with in his first season with the Jets, dishing out a career-high and team-leading 186 hits in 66 games (an average of nearly three per game) despite logging a modest 10:28 of average ice time.
If the 28 year old, whose motor and competitiveness impressed Jets’ brass enough to snag a new two-year deal with a $1.45 million average annual value, can stay healthy all season and sees his ice time tick up a little, it’s not out of the question he could finish with around 250.
Penalty Minutes: Neal Pionk
This was a bit of a tough one to predict because no one on the Jets last season was highly penalized except for Logan Stanley, who had 99 penalty minutes in 59 games before being dealt to the Buffalo Sabres at the 2026 Trade Deadline.
Scheifele was second in penalty minutes for the Jets last season with 43 in 82 games, and Pionk actually finished fifth with 37. However, Pionk only played 51 games due to various injuries; if he stays healthy, he could have 70-80 by seasons’ end considering he logs more than 20 minutes per game on the blue line.
Average Ice Time: Josh Morrissey
Morrissey, an elite top-pairing two-way defenseman and staple of the Jets’ top pairing, is pretty much a lock to lead the Jets in ice time for the seventh-straight season.
Last season, the lefthander averaged a team-leading and career-high 24:43, two minutes more than Pionk’s 22:43, mostly due to also being on the top power-play unit. He made good use of his minutes, posting 14 goals and 41 assists for 55 points in 77 games for his fourth-straight 50-plus-point season.
The last time someone else led the Jets in average ice time was 2019-20, when Pionk logged 23:23 to Morrissey’s 22:46.
Plus/Minus: Dylan Samberg
Considering their down 2025-26 where they allowed 256 goals — 66 more than in the Presidents’ Trophy and William M. Jennings Trophy-winning 2024-25 — no one on the Jets had a very good plus/minus rating. Dylan DeMelo and Tanner Pearson tied at plus-7, but Samberg was close behind at a plus-5 rating over 66 games.
However, in 2024-25, Samberg posted a gaudy and team-leading plus-34 rating over 60 games, illustrating not only how good that Jets squad was as a whole but also how few goals they gave up when the stingy Samberg was on the ice.
If the Jets can play with more team speed this season and Samberg has a more-consistent defensive partner — Pionk missing 31 games translated into a whopping 11 different partners for Samberg over the entire season — it’s not a stretch to predict he could get a lot closer to his 2024-25 rating considering his strong defensive metrics.
Goals Against Average (GAA) and Save Percentage (SV%): Stuart Skinner
We’ll go with Skinner to lead the team in GAA and SV% because it’s still far from guaranteed that Connor Hellebuyck even plays another game as a Jet (even if the trade rumours have died down a lot compared to the fever pitch they were at around the 2026 Draft and first days of free agency.)
If Hellebuyck is traded, Skinner will be the starter or, if the trade return includes an NHL-calibre goaltender, at least play in a tandem.
Even if Hellebuyck stays, predicting Skinner to lead in GAA and SV% might not represent someone being totally out to lunch. He posted a 2.92 GAA and .888 SV% in 50 games between the Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins last season while Hellebuyck — whose game fell off from his Vezina and Hart Trophy winning 2024-25 — posted a 2.86 GAA and .895 SV% in 57 games.
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