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NHL Insider Reveals Unexpected Winnipeg Jets Remaining Offseason Plans
David Kirouac-Imagn Images

NHL insider Michael Remis of 'Winnipeg Sports Talk' revealed the Jets are likely done making moves this offseason despite having plenty of cap space available.

After a Presidents' Trophy-winning regular season and a solid, but disappointing playoff run for the Winnipeg Jets last seson, they haven't exactly had the offseason to get everyone's hopes high for a repeat of that success, or even build on it.

Nikolaj Ehlers walked away from the team in free agency, losing a big chunk of their offensive punch, along with Mason Appleton and Brandon Tanev. In return, the team brought in Jonathan Toews, Tanner Pearson, and Gustav Nyquist. Quite a dip.

But with plenty of cap space and a hole in their top six, will the Jets make any more additions or not? NHL insider Michael Remis of Winnipeg Sports Talk joined Daily Faceoff Live to talk about whether fans should expect anything else from Winnipeg this summer, and his answer is not going to sit too well with many who were hopeful.

Michael Remis: 'The roster is going to take a step back without Nikolaj Ehlers, huge secondary scoring. You saw that speed, his ability to enter the zone. And finally, this year they moved him to the first power play unit, and their power play was the number one power play in the NHL.

They've signed Jonathan Toews as a second-line center. I think there is a lot of unknown there in terms of what he can bring after his layoff. And Gustav Nyquist had a down year last year. A career year two years ago, can he be somewhere in the middle and provide some secondary scoring? But the thing is with either of those players, they're not exactly the fastest in the league. So the Jets are going to lose some speed without Ehlers, and we'll see how they rebound as far as adding more players.

I think this is going to be it for now. From what we've heard, they're not really looking to add. They do have a lot of cap space, so maybe something could come up. They do have a number of defensemen locked up, which is interesting. I think they got nine under NHL contract. That's after they sign Dylan Sandberg, who's got an arbitration date for next week.

So I think this is going to be it. You'd like to see them add. They do have the cap space. Now some of that is to cover for Jonathan Toews' bonuses for games played. There's a lot of those. They have $10 million in cap space right now, but they have to sign Samberg. That's going to come in at maybe $6 million or just over, so they would have $4 million. So I think this is going to be it. We'll have to wait and see, maybe there's something else, but I'm not anticipating any major moves.'

Now that the second half of the offseason is about to begin, it doesn't seem like Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff will be making any further moves, but fans can always hope for a miracle.

This article first appeared on Hockey Latest and was syndicated with permission.

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