Winnipeg Jets
Pucks and Pitchforks talked about the Winnipeg Jets situation over and over again. At first glance, it doesn’t look that bad. Even with a flat cap, the Jets have more than $15 million to spend next season. However, they have 15 players set to hit free agency. 11 of those players are unrestricted free agents, meaning they can leave for nothing. None of the players are going to get massive deals, but a player like Jack Roslovic will get a raise of some kind.
They have a lot of replacing to do on offense, but the work they need to do on defense might be one of the tallest tasks in the league. To do that, they need money to pay their players. Seven players are going to make $6+ million next season, including Blake Wheeler who’s coming in north of $8 million. Then, after next season, they will need to give Patrik Laine a new contract.
The Jets are in a bad way. However, with just one move, they could be in a much better situation. A trade of Nikolaj Ehlers would hurt a lot, but it would give them $6 million for the next five seasons. However, that would cost the Devils a lot in assets since he has some much time left on his contract.
Trading for Laine would obviously help. That gives the Jets $21 million to rebuild the defense and add to their bottom six. They would need to replace Laine, but there are ways to add a scorer in this league. Look what the Columbus Blue Jackets got in Gustav Nyquist. The Jets could look for a deal like that in free agency, but it could be even better since less teams will have money to spend.