Just hours away from an arbitration between the Winnipeg Jets and Dylan Samberg, the team and player agreed to a three-year extension for the defenceman that would keep him in the city for three years and pay him $5.75M per season.
This is a very fair amount for both sides, but walks the young defenceman who set career highs this year right into free agency in three years. This does not point to a team looking to be competitive in the long run, but one hedging their options against a potential tear-down.
What does this mean for the Winnipeg Jets
The Jets are in a unique position across the league. Unlike most other teams, Winnipeg is entering a period of major upheaval on their roster. With the exception of Mark Scheifele, Gabriel Vilardi, Neal Pionk, and goalie Connor Hellebuyck, every single player’s contract comes to an end in the next three seasons.
Kyle Connor, Adam Lowry, Cole Perfetti, and Logan Stanley and other depth pieces are all going into the last year of their current deals, and only Perfetti will be a restricted free agent (RFA) after this year.
Nino Niederreiter and Morgan Barron headline the UFAs for the following season, while Josh Morrissey, Dylan Demelo, and Samberg all become UFAs at the end of the 2028–29 season. This is also the point at which Perfetti becomes a UFA unless he is locked up long-term.
For the Jets ownership and management, this structure and the signing of Samberg point to a group that is hedging their bets for the future. While the team has been excellent for the last number of years, they simply have not been able to get it done. They have made the playoffs in eight of the last 11 seasons dating back to the 2014–15 season, but have only made it out of the first round thrice- this past season, the 2020–21 bubble playoffs, and in 2017–18 when they made it to the Conference Finals.
While you can look at the playoffs as a coin flip or say things like, “if you make it in, anything can happen”, it’s reaching a point clearly where this management group is looking at the team on the ice and asking whether this core has what it takes to bring the Cup to Winnipeg.
Since the Jets moved back home in 2011, this team has been broadly very good, and has one of the best fan bases in the league cheering it on. Kevin Cheveldayoff and team have tinkered with the team over the last 15 years to keep them competitive, but this latest signing points to more questions being asked about the future of this core.
What does this mean for the Winnipeg Jets this season
This is going to be probably the most pivotal season in Jets history. If this season goes well and Winnipeg can make it out of the first two rounds, it may inspire this management group to say this is a core that can win. However, the winning window is starting to shrink as Hellebuyck, Scheifele, and co continue to age.
Scheifele and Hellebuyck are both 32, Morrissey is 30, and Connor is going into the last year of his contract without an extension in place. Sure Villardi and Perfetti are young and capable, but the Jets’ prospect pool does not have much elite talent coming through the ranks, rather a lot of very good depth pieces. The team can push chips into the middle in the short-term, but if that doesn’t work out, it runs the risk of a very long and dark rebuild that could begin as early as this coming summer.
This is not to say that the Jets are a bad team currently; in fact the opposite. There is an immense amount of talent in the franchise and it’s a team that should be in the running for the President’s Trophy this season again, but the window to win is shrinking and the time for a rebuild is getting closer. The Samberg contract is just one more sign that this management group is hedging against this core for the future unless this year goes exceptionally well for the Jets. Fingers crossed.
Rinksiders 
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