Generally, at this time of the year, teams will start discussions with at least some of their pending free agents to get a sense of what they might be looking for. Sometimes, those discussions simply remain cursory while in others, they can lead to trades if an agreement isn’t reached by the trade deadline.
Last year, Winnipeg didn’t take that approach. They ultimately held onto their pending free agents while adding to their roster and still managed to re-sign a key UFA when they re-upped Dylan DeMelo in the days leading up to free agency. It appears they’re taking a similar approach this season. In an intermission appearance on Monday (transcribed by Illegal Curve’s David Minuk), Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff indicated that there have been no negotiations yet between him and any of their pending free agents.
The list of players on expiring contracts is quite expansive. Among the notable unrestricted free agents in July will be wingers Nikolaj Ehlers, Alex Iafallo, and Mason Appleton, center Vladislav Namestnikov, and defenseman Neal Pionk. Meanwhile, winger Gabriel Vilardi, center Morgan Barron, and blueliner Dylan Samberg highlight the RFA class. As things stand, Winnipeg has close to half their roster to try to keep in the fold.
At the moment, Winnipeg has a little over $52.6MM in commitments on the books for next season, per PuckPedia. With the salary cap for next season still to be determined, Cheveldayoff doesn’t know yet how much money he’ll have to spend but it should be somewhere in the $40MM range. That should be enough to keep or replace their core pieces on expiring deals and potentially add to that core group as well.
It’s also worth noting that the Jets are one of the top teams in the league. Entering play tonight, Winnipeg sits atop the Western Conference with 65 points and they are only four behind Washington for the league lead in that department. It’s fair to say they’re not going to be sellers so unless they’re fixed on avoiding the risk of letting one of their better rentals leaving for nothing in free agency, it’s not as if Cheveldayoff has to get contract talks going in the coming weeks.
Between now and the March 7th trade deadline, we’ll see plenty of activity pertaining to contract discussions and eventual extensions across the NHL. But it appears Winnipeg won’t be particularly active on that front over the next six weeks.
Certainly looking like Ehlers going leave so go play with his good pal Patrick Laine in Montreal.