Winnipeg Jets and a Fall No One Saw Coming

From league leaders to last place, the Jets’ collapse has been swift, stunning and deeply revealing

The Winnipeg Jets did not slowly fade away. They fell.

Less than a calendar year after finishing first overall and claiming the Presidents’ Trophy, Winnipeg now sits dead last in the NHL standings, buried beneath a season that has unraveled faster than anyone expected. Eleven straight losses have turned what once felt like a temporary slide into a defining collapse.

This is not a single bad stretch. It is a complete reversal.

The Jets have lost close games at a historic rate, dropping 13 straight one-goal decisions. On paper, that suggests competitiveness. In reality, it reveals a team unable to finish, unable to respond, and increasingly unable to change its fate.

What makes the downfall so striking is how little has changed on the surface. The roster looks familiar. The systems remain recognizable. The games themselves often feel within reach. Yet the results keep moving in the same direction, away from relevance and toward the bottom of the league.

Winnipeg stays in games. It trades chances. It reaches the final minutes with the score tight. Then something breaks. A missed coverage. A failed clear. A moment of hesitation. The game ends, and the Jets walk off again without points.

That pattern has defined the season.

There is a visible weight to how the Jets play now. Confidence, once a strength, has eroded. Late-game situations feel tense rather than controlled. Instead of dictating play, Winnipeg reacts, waiting for the mistake that has come far too often.

This is how belief disappears. Not all at once, but shift by shift.

The standings tell the story in stark terms. First place last season. Last place now. The distance between those two points is not supposed to be this short, but for Winnipeg, it has been alarmingly brief.

The Jets’ collapse is not about effort alone, nor can it be explained by a single flaw. It’s a breakdown of execution, confidence and identity, all happening at the same time. Close losses stopped being unlucky weeks ago. They became evidence.

At some point, teams must decide who they are. Right now, Winnipeg is a team stuck between what it was and what it has become, unable to reclaim one or accept the other.

To fall from the top of the NHL to the bottom in under a year is rare. To do it while remaining competitive most nights makes it even more unsettling.

The Jets are not being blown out. They are being worn down, quietly and consistently, until the losses feel inevitable.

This season will not be remembered for how close Winnipeg came.

It will be remembered for how far it fell.