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Winnipeg Jets
2026-27 season preview

Winnipeg Jets

36-38-1082 pts30th of 32
Goals for
2.56
25th in the league
Goals against
3.02
21st in the league
Power play
18.5%
24th in the league

Kodo projects the Winnipeg Jets for 36-38-10 (82 pts), carried by 11th-ranked expected defense. In a points-only league, the fantasy value runs through Kyle Connor and Mark Scheifele on PP1. 2 core skaters project to rise and 3 to slip. Connor Hellebuyck is the projected starter.

Your categories · using the preset above
Regression watch
finishing/on-ice luck ran hot — expect some pullback off last year's line
Buy-low
underlying shot/chance rates outran the results — a discount vs name value
The crease
Connor Hellebuyck
Connor Hellebuyck projects the crease (~49 starts), but Stuart Skinner (~35) makes it more timeshare than lock
Contents · 12 sections

Latest

lines, injuries and roster moves 1 / 12
TransactionConnor Hellebuyck added to WPG roster · NHL transactions2026-08-13
Injury noteVladislav Namestnikovnow Questionable for start of season · CBS2026-07-28
Injury noteAlex Iafallonow Questionable for start of season · CBS2026-07-28
Injury noteNeal Pionknow Questionable for start of season · CBS2026-07-28
Injury noteMorgan Barronnow Questionable for start of season · CBS2026-07-28
Each item names its source. Kodo's own projected line changes are not reported here.
Carried into camp
Neal PionkProbable for start of season — Undisclosed · CBS2026-04-16 · 126d
Alex IafalloProbable for start of season — Undisclosed · CBS2026-04-16 · 126d
Vladislav NamestnikovProbable for start of season — Undisclosed · CBS2026-04-16 · 126d
Morgan BarronProbable for start of season — Lower Body · CBS2026-04-14 · 128d
Reported more than 30 days ago, so listed as a standing condition rather than news. The date is the one the injury feed carries, which is the game the player was expected to miss — not the day anything was last checked.

Where this team sits

last season vs projection 2 / 12
25-2626-27Change
Goals for2.7925th2.5631st-0.23▼6
Goals against3.1221st3.0215th-0.10▲6
Power play18.524th17.3328th-1.17▼4
Penalty kill77.621st80.1910th+2.59▲11
Faceoffs51.19th48.9120th-2.19▼11
Points percentage0.526th0.48830th-0.012▼4
How these projections are made
Both bars share one scale per row — the wider of the two league ranges — so a bar that moves is a number that moved. The grey tick is that column's league average, and the arrow is the change in league rank. Goals-against and expected-goals-against rank ascending, so low is good and green always means improved.
Goals for, goals against and points percentage come from the roster: summed player projections over the real 26-27 schedule, last season's expected goals against regressed toward the league and adjusted for projected goaltending, and a game-by-game simulation of that schedule.
The special teams are projected from how much each number actually carries over year to year, measured across 298 team-season pairs going back to 2010-11. The power play uses one prior season shrunk 0.36; the penalty kill uses three, weighted .5/.3/.2 and shrunk 0.38. Special teams barely persist, so a league-worst penalty kill is mostly bad luck and comes most of the way back, while the faceoff dot is a repeatable team skill. How far a club moves depends on how far from the mean it started: Vancouver sits near league average on both the power play and the faceoff dot and barely shifts, while Edmonton's 30.6% power play comes back to the middle and this penalty kill, worst in the league, is the biggest riser of all 32.
The penalty kill averages three seasons because one measures it so badly. Split a single season's spread into ability and sampling noise — a kill rate is a binomial over about 250 opportunities, so the noise is known rather than guessed — and only 33% of the gap between clubs is real. Divide the year-over-year correlation by that and the ability underneath comes out near 1.0: penalty killing is almost perfectly persistent and merely hard to see in one season. The cure for a noisy measurement is more of it, and three seasons beat one by 4.3% out of sample. Because averaging reorders clubs, that row's rank is a real forecast; the rows marked = are single-season regressions, which compress the values but keep them in order, so their rank is last season's by construction and only the value is a prediction.
A roster-aware faceoff model was built and rejected on the evidence. Draw counts are not stored, but they can be recovered exactly from the per-game percentages, and with real draws a club's number reconstructs from its own centres. It still does not predict better: given a club's first half to learn from and even handed the second half's draw distribution, it scored 2.24 against the plain regression's 2.26 across 32 clubs, and the best blend of the two puts almost no weight on it. A team's faceoff percentage already carries who takes its draws. Expected goals has no team projection at all, so that row shows last season alone.

How last season went

in quarters — where the season was won and lost 3 / 12
They faded from where they started-12 points of win percentage between the first quarter and the last.
Oct–Nov10-0911-21
60%12-8
for3.35
against2.80
Nov–Jan11-2301-06
14%3-18
for2.43
against3.52
Jan–Mar01-0803-05
50%10-10
for2.85
against2.85
Mar–Apr03-0704-16
48%10-11
for2.67
against3.48
Why the shape matters more than the total
Every rate on the board above is a season average, and an average cannot tell a club that was good all year from one that was excellent for six weeks and ordinary after. Those are different teams to draft into: the second one probably changed — an injury, a call-up, a coach — and whatever changed is likelier to still be true in October than the average is.
Read it against the roster movement section. A club that faded and then lost its best defenceman is not going to bounce; one that faded while carrying injuries and got everybody back is a different case entirely.
Quarters are equal shares of the games actually played, so the windows differ slightly by club depending on scheduling.

Schedule shape

games per week and per month, light nights, back-to-backs 4 / 12
Light nights
27.4%17th
23 of 84 games
Four-game weeks
713th
6 weeks of two or fewer
Back-to-backs
93rd
roughly one backup start each
Playoff-week games
924th
over 3 weeks · 1 back-to-back
Games per week
2026-09-28on light nights2027-04-05
Games by month
Oct*
14
Nov
15
Dec
13
Jan
13
Feb
10
Mar
14
Apr*
5
* part of a month — the season opens and closes mid-month.
Why these three and not a schedule score
They answer different formats, so combining them would hide the answer rather than give it. Four-game weeks decide weekly-lineup leagues: the same player produces a third more in a four-game week than a three-game one, and clubs differ by several such weeks across a season. Light nights decide daily leagues and streaming — a light night is one carrying no more than the league's median number of games (6 this season), so your man is a far larger share of everything available than he is on a sixteen-game Tuesday. Playoff-week games counts the last three weeks of the season excluding the final one — most head-to-head leagues have crowned a champion before the NHL finishes, and that last week is short and full of rested stars. Back-to-backs decide the crease, because a starter rarely takes both ends, so each one is roughly a start handed to the backup.
Ranks are against all 32 clubs, and the whole thing is read off the published slate — no projection is involved.

Projected lineup

lines, pairs and both special teams, with what each man projects for 5 / 12
Lineup notes
This is the lineup the club can ice on opening night, not its best-case group. A player expected to miss more than the opening month is left out and his slot goes to whoever takes it — he keeps his projection below, he is out of the lineup, not out of the season.
Projected ice time totals 298.1 of the 300 skater-minutes a game has. Power play 3.16′ on the first unit, 1.79′ on the second; the kill 2.35′, 1.67′ and 1′ across three units — all measured.Change this lineup →

Forward lines

L1
LW
Kyle ConnorG: 98th percentileA: 96th percentileGA
91 pts · 19.0′
37G · 53A · 257SOG · 30HIT · 25BLK
C
Mark ScheifeleG: 95th percentileA: 97th percentileGA
90 pts · 18.0′
32G · 58A · 161SOG · 42HIT · 45BLK
RW
Alex IafalloG: 61st percentileA: 44th percentileGA
26 pts · 18.3′
12G · 14A · 102SOG · 88HIT · 53BLK
L2
LW
Gabriel VilardiG: 90th percentileA: 84th percentileGA
60 pts · 16.6′
26G · 34A · 129SOG · 20HIT · 35BLK
C
Cole PerfettiG: 73rd percentileA: 70th percentileGA
41 pts · 16.6′
16G · 24A · 137SOG · 55HIT · 34BLK
RW
Adam LowryG: 50th percentileA: 47th percentileGA
24 pts · 15.1′
9G · 15A · 75SOG · 142HIT · 49BLK
L3
LW
Nino NiederreiterG: 55th percentileA: 36th percentileGA
21 pts · 14.0′
10G · 11A · 97SOG · 90HIT · 25BLK
C
Vladislav NamestnikovG: 44th percentileA: 34th percentileGA
18 pts · 15.0′
7G · 11A · 75SOG · 77HIT · 39BLK
RW
Isak RosenG: 36th percentileA: 13th percentileGA
11 pts · 14.0′
6G · 5A · 54SOG · 23HIT · 23BLK
L4
LW
Cole KoepkeG: 38th percentileA: 18th percentileGA
13 pts · 13.1′
6G · 6A · 79SOG · 173HIT · 21BLK
C
Morgan BarronG: 50th percentileA: 28th percentileGA
18 pts · 13.1′
9G · 9A · 89SOG · 127HIT · 39BLK
RW
Brad LambertG: 13th percentileA: 7th percentileGA
5 pts · 10.7′
2G · 3A · 22SOG · 29HIT · 11BLK

Defence pairs

D1
LD
Josh MorrisseyG: 63rd percentileA: 94th percentileGA
59 pts · 22.6′
13G · 46A · 151SOG · 46HIT · 117BLK
RD
Dylan DeMeloG: 16th percentileA: 41st percentileGA
16 pts · 20.1′
2G · 13A · 69SOG · 117HIT · 105BLK
D2
LD
Neal PionkG: 36th percentileA: 54th percentileGA
24 pts · 20.3′
6G · 18A · 127SOG · 151HIT · 107BLK
RD
Dylan SambergG: 19th percentileA: 39th percentileGA
15 pts · 19.2′
3G · 12A · 93SOG · 63HIT · 126BLK
D3
LD
Mario FerraroG: 29th percentileA: 39th percentileGA
17 pts · 17.2′
4G · 12A · 86SOG · 136HIT · 143BLK
RD
Jack St. IvanyG: 1st percentileA: 9th percentileGA
4 pts · 15.8′
0G · 4A · 29SOG · 77HIT · 44BLK

Special teams

Scratches & depth

unsigned — drafted property with no NHL contract. They carry a projection but are not dressed in a line.

Roster movement & minutes

who changed, and the minutes freed 6 / 12
In Hellebuyck, Skinner, Ferraro, Samberg, Rosen, Lowry, Perfetti, Ivany, Salomonsson
Callup Barlow, Bjorck, Yager, Chibrikov, Boumedienne
Out Toews, Stanley→UFA, Pearson→UFA, Nyquist, Schenn→VAN, Miller, Bryson, Heinola
Iafallo15.616.8 +1.2
Rosen11.512.5 +1
Morrissey24.723.8 -0.9
Ferraro2120.1 -0.9
Connor21.520.6 -0.9
Barron12.811.6 -1.2
Vilardi18.716.9 -1.8
Pionk22.720.7 -2
Biggest projected minute changes either way — a club's ice time is a fixed budget, so the departures above are what free it up. Full board →

Camp battles

contested roles, priced in points 7 / 12
Top power-play unit — quarterback4.9 pts at stake
holds it
Josh Morrissey
59 proj pts · 23.8′ · 3.1′ PP
vs
pushing
Neal Pionk
24 proj pts · 20.7′ · 1.7′ PP
Josh Morrisseymodel favours the incumbentNeal Pionk
1.40 more min/game on PP1 (measured PP1 vs PP2 minutes), at the challenger's own scoring rate over a full season. Power-play gaps come from measured PP minutes last season; even-strength gaps from the role model that drives every projection on this page.

Power play

18.5% last season · who it runs through, and what is left of it 8 / 12
Conversion
18.5%
on the man advantage
PP goals
42
455 shots
Expected goals
41.7
+0.3 vs actual
Shooting
9.2%
of PP shots go in
Who it runs through · last season
PlayerPP/gmSharePPGPPAPPP/60ixGIPPFocal
Vilardi3.0449%1311245.777.668%1.62
Scheifele3.1350%715225.14563%1.44
Connor3.0749%514194.535.257%1.28
Morrissey3.150%214164.022.655%1.13
Iafallo1.321%2352.933.40.82
Niederreiter1.7428%1452.831.50.79
Perfetti2.3137%3362.35.647%0.65
Pionk1.7227%1121.371.40.4
Namestnikov1.5525%2021.291.70.37
What IPP, focal and ixG mean
IPP is the share of the power-play goals he was on the ice for that he got a point on. It is the direct form of “the play runs through him”: two men can take the same unit minutes while one touches the puck on every goal and the other watches from the far circle. League average on the power play is 59%. It is computed from the on-ice record of every goal, corrected for the ~18% of goals with no on-ice row and shrunk toward the positional mean for thin samples, so it cannot exceed 1.
Focal is the older, cruder version — his share of the team's power-play points over his share of its minutes. It is team-relative, so it moves when a teammate is injured; IPP does not. ixG is the expected goals from his own shots on the man advantage. Minutes are measured, not modelled.
Projected PP1Scheifele22 PPP (22 last yr)Connor23 PPP (19 last yr)Vilardi22 PPP (24 last yr)Morrissey19 PPP (16 last yr)Perfetti10 PPP (6 last yr)
Projected PP2Niederreiter5 PPP (5 last yr)Iafallo6 PPP (5 last yr)Namestnikov4 PPP (2 last yr)Pionk6 PPP (2 last yr)Rosen2 PPP (3 last yr)

Hits, blocks and the rest

what a banger league is won with 9 / 12
Hits
172824th
projected, this roster · of 32
Blocks
121426th
projected, this roster · of 32
Shots
201632nd
projected, this roster · of 32
Penalty minutes
48732nd
projected, this roster · of 32
Faceoff wins
154931st
projected, this roster · of 32
H+B
294123rd
projected, this roster · of 32
S+H+B
495730th
projected, this roster · of 32
Who supplies them
PlayerGPHits/60Blks/60PKPIMFOW+/-H+BS+H+B
Ferraro D3791364.771435.233.439-9279365
Pionk D2·PP2741515.751073.892.650+6258386
DeMelo D1791173.911053.712.438+13223291
Lowry L2701428.57492.741.832542+2191267
Koepke L46517316.1211.651.817+0194273
Samberg D273632.211264.82.623+10189282
Barron L4681279.52392.881.927198+4166255
Morrissey D1·PP180461.141173.720.930+9163313
Iafallo L1·PP276885.84532.731.21414+7141244
Fleury48646.13696.361.415-14133169
Namestnikov L3·PP265775.51392.680.830160-2115190
Ivany D335778.83444.421.316+1121149
Niederreiter L3·PP265904.99251.430.12090116212
Scheifele L1·PP177421.09451.60.545569+387248
Perfetti L2·PP170553.05341.870.12011-190227
Vilardi L2·PP170200.78351.370.12046-355184
Connor L1·PP179301.23250.651.2181+256313
Bjorck3243185061125
Barlow273615405171
Rosen L3·PP245232.4232.820.171-246100
Yager2734151.7204973
Lambert L420294.89111.33604062
What actually moves these numbers
Penalty-kill time is the strongest driver of blocks we can measure. Across 1,504 consecutive season pairs, a skater who gains a minute of shorthanded time a game adds a median 9.5 blocks over 84 games — a defenceman 16 — and the effect runs monotonically the other way too: lose a minute and it is −15.6, or −25.9 for a defenceman. The PK column is here for that reason.
But it is mostly the minutes, not the man. Shorthanded time correlates +0.52 with blocks per 60 across players and only +0.14 within the same player year to year, which says coaches pick shot-blockers for the kill more than the kill turns anyone into one. A player promoted onto PK1 gains blocks because he is on the ice for more shots, not because he changed — so price the ice time, not a breakout.
Hits run opposite to ice time. Total minutes correlate −0.57 with hits per 60, and −0.60 among forwards: the fourth line hits, the first line does not. So a rate beats a total here more than in any other category, which is what the /60 columns are for — a checker on eleven minutes at 12 hits per 60 is worth more than a first-liner at 5 on nineteen, and their season totals can look identical.
Power-play time predicts the absence of all of it — −0.43 with hits per 60, −0.47 with blocks, −0.26 with penalty minutes. The men who run a power play are not the men who supply a banger roster, which is why the two sections of this page rarely name anybody twice.
Faceoff wins are a volume category. They track draws taken far more than win rate, so the man to want is the one taking the most — normally the first-line centre and whoever takes defensive-zone draws on the kill.
Measured on 2022-23 through 2025-26, skaters with 40+ games and 200+ minutes at both ends of each pair.

Contracts and the cap

what the roster costs, and who reaches the market 10 / 12
$100.5Mcommitted · 25 of 27 on file
6reach the market after this season

Pending free agents · this summer

Nino NiederreiterRUFA$4.00M21 pts
Vladislav NamestnikovCUFA$3.00M18 pts
Morgan BarronCUFA$1.85M18 pts
Haydn FleuryDUFA$0.95M2 pts
Brad LambertCRFA$0.89M5 pts
Jack St. IvanyDUFA$0.80M4 pts

Free the summer after

Josh MorrisseyD$6.25M59 pts
Dylan SambergD$5.75M15 pts
Dylan DeMeloD$4.90M16 pts
Stuart SkinnerG$3.75M
Alex IafalloL$3.67M26 pts
Cole KoepkeL$1.45M13 pts
Brayden YagerC$0.94M8 pts
Isak RosenR$0.93M11 pts
Colby BarlowR$0.91M6 pts
Nikita ChibrikovR$0.88M2 pts

Biggest cap hits

Kyle ConnorL$12.00M7y left · NMC
Mark ScheifeleC$8.50M4y left · NMC
Connor HellebuyckG$8.50M4y left · NMC
Gabriel VilardiC$7.50M4y left
Neal PionkD$7.00M4y left · M-NTC
Josh MorrisseyD$6.25M1y left · M-NTC
Cole PerfettiC$6.00M4y left
Dylan SambergD$5.75M1y left

Cap hits from CapWages for the 25 men on file. A dash is a figure we do not have, usually a restricted free agent whose entry-level deal has lapsed, and those are left out of the committed total rather than counted as nothing.

The crease

GSAx last season, projected next 11 / 12
GSAx view
Hellebuyck
57 starts last season
GSAx / start
-0.921
lg -0.858146th
Shot quality faced
0.0708
lg 0.073122th hardest
0.50-1.613570
10-start rolling GSAx · appearance 1-70 · shared scale
2026-27 projection
49 GS22 W (1635)0.906 SV%2.66 GAA
Skinner
50 starts last season
GSAx / start
-0.853
lg -0.858152th
Shot quality faced
0.0784
lg 0.073194th hardest
0.50-1.614181
10-start rolling GSAx · appearance 1-81 · shared scale
2026-27 projection
35 GS15 W (1329)0.896 SV%2.78 GAA
GSAx is goals saved above expected — what the shots he faced were worth, minus what he actually allowed. Shown per start, because a backup cannot out-accumulate a starter but can out-perform him on a per-night basis. Shot quality faced is expected goals per shot: higher means he was hung out to dry more often, and the percentile is where that workload ranks among goalies with 15+ starts. Rolling form is a 10-start moving average — is he playing well lately; running total is the season's accumulated damage. Per-game GSAx is too noisy to read either from directly.

Every skater

the reference table · Overall is value as a z-score against the league, so +1.00 is a standard deviation above average 12 / 12
Forwards · 17
PlayerRoleOverallGPGAP / ifPPPSHPSOGHITBLKPIM+/-FOWH+BS+H+BTrajectorySignals
Kyle ConnorL1·PP1+2.4479375390.6232257302518+2156313PP1
Mark ScheifeleL1·PP1+2.4277325889.9221161424545+356987248sell-highPP1
Gabriel VilardiL2·PP1+1.1970263460.4/70220129203520-34655184ascendingice time ↓PP1
Cole PerfettiL2·PP1+0.3770162440.6/47100137553420-11190227bounce-backPP1
Alex IafalloL1·PP2-0.2276121426.461102885314+714141244
Adam LowryL2-0.327091523.802751424932+2542191267bounce-back
Nino NiederreiterL3·PP2-0.4265101121.4/27509790252009116212declining
Vladislav NamestnikovL3·PP2-0.576571117.64075773930-2160115190declining
Morgan BarronL4-0.58689917.602891273927+4198166255
Cole KoepkeL4-0.78656612.70179173211700194273
Viggo Bjorck-0.81325712/281064431850061125
Isak RosenL3·PP2-0.86456510.8/19205423237-2146100
Brayden Yager-0.9827358/19102434152004973
Colby Barlow-1.0627336/15102036154005171
Brad LambertL4-1.1020235/14102229116004062
Chaz Luciusunsigned-1.1812123/1600131672002336
Nikita Chibrikov-1.2212112/1100121774002436
Defence · 9
PlayerRoleOverallGPGAP / ifPPPSHPSOGHITBLKPIM+/-FOWH+BS+H+BTrajectorySignals
Josh MorrisseyD1·PP1+1.1480134659.21901514611730+90163313sell-highPP1
Neal PionkD2·PP2-0.327461823.96012715110750+60258386decliningice time ↓
Mario FerraroD3-0.627941216.6008613614339-90279365
Dylan DeMeloD1-0.667921315.7016911710538+130223291
Dylan SambergD2-0.697331214.900936312623+100189282
Jack St. IvanyD3-1.15350440029774416+10121149ascending
Sascha Boumedienne-1.1814123/14001317223003952
Elias Salomonsson-1.2212022/1200314192003336
Haydn Fleury-1.2448011.60036646915-140133169bounce-back
Goalies · 2
GoalieGSWLOTLSV%GAASVSAGASHOGSAxGSAx/GS
Connor Hellebuyck49222260.9062.66122013471272.1-52.5-0.921
Stuart Skinner35151540.8962.78819914951.5-42.6-0.853

Projected record and projected ice time are model estimates; ranks, lines, projections and trend signals trace to real data.