Mitch Kasprick is now the “Westdale Curmudgeon.”
Odds and Ends, Thoughts, and Questions from this past week in Hockey –
Just so there’s no confusion when I’m spewing my bias, I am a fan of the Winnipeg Jets, Manitoba Moose, and all Team Canada Hockey teams.
I am NOT a fan of Gary Bettman, or as I call him, Count Chocula. I am a big believer in the 7Ps, or is it the 8Ps? You’ve been warned.
1. Jets: With the loss of Nik Ehlers, I don’t see the Jets putting all their eggs in one basket by playing Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, and Gabe Vilardi on the same line all of the time. I could see Cole Perfetti, Jonathon Toews and Gabe playing together, with Alex Iafallo playing with KC and Scheif again.
2. Jets: Having Luke Schenn for a full season should be interesting, with lots of good and bad. Having his physicality will be nice, but he has an awful lot of pylon in his game as well.
3. Jets: Does anybody else see JT putting up 50-plus points this season? I think he can do it easily with the caveat that he is healthy.
4. Jets: I wonder what the future holds for Ville Heinola and Logan Stanley? The Jets have a glut of NHL-ready defencemen; the problem is they are mostly 3rd and 4th-pairing depth guys.
5. Jets: I would love to see Nikita Chibrikov start the season with Nino Niederreiter and Adam Lowry*. I must admit that I am a huge supporter and somewhat biased when it comes to Chibrikov.
*Adam Lowry had successful hip surgery in late May, so a 5-6 month rehab would see him possibly returning in November.
6. NHL: The NHL has published a list of their ” Top 20 defenceman” and, for the most part, I have no problem with it, although I would have put Jets’ blueliner Josh Morrissey at #4 or #5, and I think Miro Heiskanen and Charlie McAvoy are ranked much too high.
Send me your thoughts on the list in the comment section.
Jets: Poll question: I’m very curious to see which of the youngsters make a hard push for a roster spot. Please select a maximum of 3 players.
[poll id=”120″]
7. Jets: In case you are interested, this is the Jets’ current salary cap situation.
The NHL salary cap for the 2025/26 season is 95.5 mil at the top end and 70.6 mil at the floor.
Projected Cap Space:
Amount of Cap Space projected to be available at the end of the year. It is the league’s “Annual Salary Cap” (95.5 mil) minus a team’s “Projected Cap Hit”.
Current Cap Space:
Amount of Annual Cap Hit that can be added to the roster without exceeding the Upper Limit (Salary Cap Maximum) based on the current roster. For teams using LTIR, Current Cap Space is the amount of annual cap hit that can be added without exceeding the Salary Cap by more than the team’s LTIR Pool.
Deadline Cap Space:
Assuming the team does not make any roster moves between now and the trade deadline, this is the annual cap hit that the team can fit on trade deadline day. If the team adds a cap hit between now and the deadline, the space at the deadline will decrease.
Maximum LTIR Pool:
The maximum amount of Long Term Injured Reserve space potentially available. This is the Cap Hit of the player on LTIR, less the Cap Space available for the team at the time the player was on LTIR. A player can go on LTIR when they expect to miss 10 games and 24 days in the season. A player on LTIR does not come off the salary cap; instead, a team is allowed to exceed the cap by the LTIR amount.
8. Jets: I’d like to see a little more of Colin Miller’s booming shot on the Jets’ power play.
#5 – Isn’t Lowry out to “start the season”? Thought he had shoulder surgery?
Right, he had successful hip surgery in late May, so a 5-6 month rehab would see him possibly returning in November.
Thanks for visiting WHT and commenting.