An offseason checklist for the Winnipeg Jets

He’s coming off a strong season, one that saw him reach a career-high in goals (28) while picking up 60 points. That has him positioned to land more than the $6M qualifying offer he’s owed but the question is how much higher should they be willing to go? If they want to sign him to a long-term deal that buys up some UFA years (and Dubois is amenable to signing that type of contract), the AAV is likely to go beyond Kyle Connor’s $7.143M price tag. Do they want to go that high and reset the benchmark for their younger core?

On top of that, there is also a question of where Dubois best fits. He was brought in to play center but he has spent a fair amount of time on the wing as well. A long-term, big-money deal could potentially price them out of re-signing Mark Scheifele in a couple of years; does it make sense to do that for a player who may be better off as a winger than a center?

If it feels like there are a lot of questions for a pending restricted free agent, it’s because there are. The route they go with Dubois will help shape their planning for beyond the 2022-23 campaign so getting this done sooner than later would be ideal. Dubois is likely to file for an arbitration hearing if something isn’t worked out over the next six weeks so this is something that will need to be resolved by late July or early August at the latest.

Create Cap Flexibility

The Jets have around $18M available this summer but have anywhere between seven and ten players to sign with that money. A big chunk of that will go to Dubois, which won’t leave a lot to spread around the rest of the openings. Freeing up a bit of extra flexibility would certainly help Cheveldayoff to build out the rest of the roster without having to resort to signing several players for minimum-salary deals to stay cap compliant. Forward depth has been problematic the last couple of years so being able to spend a bit more on their bottom six would help.

In order to do that, they will likely need to trade away from their back end as there really aren’t any viable non-core forwards that could be traded to free up space. They have nearly $25M tied up in their five most-expensive blueliners which is a lot.  Nate Schmidt didn’t have a great trade market a year ago and that likely hasn’t changed while Josh Morrissey and Neal Pionk aren’t likely to go anywhere. That whittles it down to Brenden Dillon ($3.9M through 2023-24) and Dylan DeMelo ($3M through 2023-24); moving one of them to make a roster spot for a prospect like Ville Heinola or Dylan Samberg would give them some cap relief and also provide a chance for one of them to get an extended look in the NHL. In a summer where many teams will be looking for some extra flexibility, any little bit helps.

Fill Backup Goalie Slot

Eric Comrie more or less got the backup goalie spot by default with the Jets due to his contract being at the league minimum. To his credit, he did quite well this season, posting a .920 SV% and 2.58 GAA in 19 appearances, giving Winnipeg solid value from that backup spot. But Comrie is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer and after the year he had, he should be able to command more than $750K on the open market.

The Jets will once again need to shop towards the lower end of the market unless they can free up a few extra million in cap space, but while Mikhail Berdin is on a one-way deal for next season, his performance with AHL Manitoba isn’t good enough to really contend for that spot so they will almost certainly have to look outside the organization if they can’t reach a new deal with Comrie. Considering the opening day of free agency usually results in quite the game of musical chairs for netminders, this is something Cheveldayoff will need to address by July 13th.