The Winnipeg Jets looked like a team battered and bruised in their final game against the St. Louis Blues, and it turns out that it isn’t just their egos that will need a few days to heal. Nikolaj Ehlers told reporters today including Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun that he suffered a fractured foot but played game six anyway, while Patrik Laine had groin and back injuries that he was dealing with throughout the playoffs. Neither player will suit up for the IIHF World Championship next month.
Brandon Tanev, who played in the final five games of the series, had surgery on a broken finger just a few days before the playoffs began.
The Jets will have plenty of questions to answer this summer after failing to get past the first round of the playoffs, and the postseason performance of Ehlers is certainly one of them. The 23-year old failed to record a single point in the series against the Blues and now has gone 21 games in his career without scoring a playoff goal. Ehlers struggled with injury for much of this season and finished with just 37 points in 62 games, a far stretch from the 60-point seasons he put up in the previous two.
The speedy forward just completed the first season of a seven-year, $42MM extension signed with the Jets in the fall of 2017. His performance is paramount to the team taking the next step and competing for the Stanley Cup.
Straight out of the Dictionary: Al-ba-tross: Ehlers’ contract… (not a verb or noun, but expletive)
while the cap hit isn’t the greatest, there aren’t too many teams that wouldn’t find a way to get him were he ever become available.