Jets’ Veteran Free-Agent Additions Have Been Busts

The 35 year old hasn’t even scored a goal as a Jet as Christmas approaches and has recorded just six assists in 24 games. He’s often been a healthy scratch of late, or given a bottom-six role. He is on a 10-game pointless streak and has only one assist since the end of October.

Jonathan Toews

The signing was much-ballyhooed, even garnering a press conference to announce it, but the impact has been negligible at best and detrimental at worst.

Jonathan Toews, the Winnipegger who inked a one-year deal to much fanfare and ink spillage, has just nine points in 33 games and is a minus-13. He has only one point in his past 17 games and hasn’t scored since Nov. 11.

This is not the same Toews who led the Chicago Blackhawks to Stanley Cup glory in 2010, 2012, and 2015. This is a 37 year old who looks every year of it. The fact he has been demoted to the fourth line — and even to the wing — in recent games from the second-line centre role he began the season with is quite the indictment on the whole experiment, especially considering one of the main things the organization was hoping he would do is win faceoffs.

There was always a risk to banking on Toews — who hadn’t played a hockey game in two years — to put together a big bounce-back campaign, a risk this author warned about back in June.

Unfortunately, the Jets are paying hand-over-fist for taking that risk. Not only is Toews’ presence blocking someone younger, but his lucrative salary structure pays him an additional bonus for every block of 10 games played, whether his play helps or hurts the team. He’s raked in $3.1 million so far, $344,444.44 for every point.

Tanner Pearson

It’s sad to say, but with four goals in 27 games, Tanner Pearson’s scoring production actually surpasses Nyquist and Toews’ combined.

Unfortunately, two of his five points came in one game — on Oct. 13, more than two months ago — and he has just two points since the end of October. Like Nyquist, he has been a semi-frequent healthy scratch.

Also like Nyquist, the veteran of 700-plus NHL games had a good offensive track record before joining the Jets; he’s operated at about a half-point-per-game clip in his career and recorded as many as 45 points in a season.

Unfortunately, his career season was more than a half decade ago, and the 33-year-old is simply too slow to provide a reliable offensive punch even from the bottom six. His possession numbers are among the team’s most disastrous.

Jets In a Sorry State of Affairs

Nyquist, Pearson, and Toews aren’t the only ones underperforming: pretty much every forward not named Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, and Gabriel Vilardi are having subpar seasons. Logan Stanley is fourth in team scoring.

The Jets started the campaign 9-3-0 but are just 6-13-2 since then for an overall record of 15-16-2. They have fallen away from their identity, head coach Scott Arniel hasn’t been able to create lines that can do much of anything, and the team is deservedly on the outside the playoff picture looking in at five points out of a wild-card spot and 27th league wide. They are too old, too slow, and appear uninterested most nights.

Although the team is still saying the right things, it may be time to accept that no turnaround is coming and that the roster Cheveldayoff constructed is simply too flawed. They seem more likely to get a high pick in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft than to be in the postseason.