Off-ice hat trick gets Jets airborne
It was seven years ago when the owners of the Atlanta Thrashers threw the keys on the table and the franchise was shifted north to Winnipeg, sparking the rebirth of the Jets.
It was a thrilling moment in Canadian sports history, a reversal of the tide that had seen the original Jets and the Quebec Nordiques uprooted and sold to U.S. cities in the mid-1990s at a time when any number of Canadian franchises were in serious financial trouble.
At the time, amidst all the excitement, there were some awkward questions few wanted to ask.
Would NHL players want to play in Winnipeg? And, with free agency as early as age 25, would the Jets be able to keep their best players?
Four years later, it appeared the answers to both might be negative. Evander Kane — at that time Winnipeg’s franchise player after being originally drafted by the Thrashers as the fourth overall pick in 2009 — demanded a trade out of Manitoba. Eventually, Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff acceded to Kane’s request, shipping him to Buffalo in a massive trade that also included defenceman Zach Bogosian, who, like Kane, was a high draft pick who had asked to be moved.
These were major red flags for the Jets 2.0. If the team was going to be treated like an NHL backwater, then the thrill of having an NHL club again was going to be short-lived. Or even history repeating itself.
Today, with the Jets possibly headed to the Stanley Cup final for the first time, it’s clear the Winnipeg franchise was able to get over that hurdle. Three significant transactions helped team president Mark Chipman and Cheveldayoff not only avoid that fate, but set the stage for this spring’s Cup run:
SIGNING DUSTIN BYFUGLIEN
Just months after Kane’s departure, there was rampant speculation that Byfuglien, one of the NHL’s most unique talents, was also likely to become an ex-Jet when he became an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2016.
It was a huge problem for the Jets. Theoretically, Byfuglien could demand an eight-year contract and a contract upwards of $8 million a year (all dollars U.S.). The Jets might not be able to handle those numbers, and it was clear there would be many suitors if he actually made it to free agency.
On Feb. 8, 2016, Cheveldayoff cut that problem off at the pass by getting Byfuglien to agree to a five-year, $38million deal. The $7.6-million average salary seemed steep, but the term worked for the team.
The fact that the big defenceman is from Roseau, Minn., about 200 kilometres south of Winnipeg, was one factor that led him to stay.