This is a stats piece about a struggling Winnipeg Jets hockey team.

If you’re looking for ways to pile on as the Jets tumble down the standings, losing four of five and occasionally looking downright miserable, it’s easy to find statistics to support you. If you want to talk about the importance of secondary scoring, Saturday night’s win was all the proof you need.

But one win against the worst team in the Western Conference doesn’t change the Jets’ most important trend.

Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Gabriel Vilardi and Josh Morrissey have scored more points in Winnipeg’s last 10 games than every other player on the team combined. Winnipeg’s second-line centre, Jonathan Toews, has been outscored 7-2 at even strength in his last 10 games, while scoring only three points in 13 November games.

Toews isn’t alone in his struggles, though; more than half of the Jets roster scored three or fewer points in November, while defencemen Neal Pionk, Logan Stanley and Dylan DeMelo have outscored Toews, Gustav Nyquist, Tanner Pearson and Cole Koepke — Winnipeg’s four most notable UFA signings — in that same time frame. Eric Comrie and Thomas Milic aren’t good enough to make up for that on their own, the way Connor Hellebuyck so often is.

It all feels like rearranging the same information to take the same swipes at an offensively challenged team. Winnipeg has three players — Connor, Scheifele and Morrissey — who can break games open and a collection of players who won’t cheat you but need more help breaking through. I don’t question effort level with respect to anyone on Toews’, Lowry’s or Namestnikov’s lines, despite their lack of production.

But it hasn’t been good enough. The Jets are still looking up at the playoff cut line after Saturday’s win. They’re still 4-6-0 in their last 10 games, despite Stanley Cup ambitions. So what can we learn about this year’s Jets? Why is this happening?

There’s insight to be had about this team beyond “they’re old” or “nobody is scoring.” Let’s start with a quick conversation with head coach Scott Arniel and a look at why secondary scoring has fallen off quite as badly as it has.

The Jets have gone from a top-10 team at five-on-five last season to one of the worst, whether you measure quality by zone time, shots or scoring chances.

Via Natural Stat Trick, Winnipeg has the third-worst percentage of shots and expected goals this season. Via the NHL’s tracking data, it’s spent the eighth-most time in its own zone at even strength. You know this by watching it: The Jets have gotten hemmed in their own zone for long stretches in ways the last team avoided, while so many more of their offensive attacks are one-and-done this season than last.

The idea of Lowry’s line spending 45 seconds cycling in the offensive zone, then going for a line change, then watching from the bench as the next line carved through the offensive zone in the same fashion, used to be routine. Now, hand-off shifts by any line stand out because of their rarity, such as the eight minutes toward the end of the second period against Washington, when the Jets looked like a great team again.

So why the lack of goals?

I put that question to Arniel this week, asking about the role of Winnipeg’s breakout problems in the Jets’ lack of sustained offensive pressure. I believe that part of Winnipeg’s offensive struggles is about what happens in the offensive zone — scoring chances that don’t get finished or perimeter play caused by a lack of speed. I think a lot of it is about the quality of exit passes Winnipeg’s forwards get from its defencemen.

My preamble referenced the importance of Winnipeg’s first pass.

“We showed some examples of that this morning,” Arniel said. “Our five-man breakouts, we did a great job of getting to our blue line. And then it was the next play after that. So I don’t always call it the first pass. I call it the next pass.”

Arniel said Winnipeg’s centres have done a good job of getting low, picking up the first pass from their defenceman. The Jets’ breakout problems have come after successful passes from D to centremen die on that next player’s stick, whether they tried to skate it out or pass it off to a winger.

“Our offence starts that way,” Arniel said. “If you can push a team back on their heels because of the rush and you don’t have to dump the puck in all the time — or start again and regroup and do it again — that’s tilting the ice. That’s making the team play in the other end of the rink.”

Garret Hohl has been tracking Winnipeg Jets zone exits and other microstats at The Five Hohl.

I put my theory to him, based on Winnipeg’s struggles and Arniel’s commentary, that Winnipeg’s breakout issues are costing the team real goals. He sent me a ton of information and insight, but let’s start with this look at Winnipeg’s year-over-year decline in controlled zone exits per game.

This year’s Jets are getting out of their own zone with possession of the puck eight fewer times per game than last year’s version did. They’re chipping it out to release the pressure (without icing it) roughly the same amount as before. They’re getting stuffed one extra time per game, whether in the form of a turnover or a breakout attempt that turns into a battle situation.

That first number is a big one. We know that controlled zone exits are the gold standard of breakout situations because they help in two ways at once: the opportunity to create offence and the opportunity to avoid defending, all because Winnipeg still has the puck. Arniel put it plainly while talking about tilting the ice.

Hohl’s math can help us quantify the impact in a little more detail. Each breakout type has a different value. We know clean exits with possession are better than chipping it out. We know chipping it out is better than turning it over. These things are obvious, but Hohl’s tracking and his math help us create an “expected shots” value for each type of breakout. The combination of video tracking and analytics can give an “expected shots” number for each type of breakout — how likely each type of zone exit is to turn into a Jets shot.

Winnipeg’s breakout problems are costing it shots, scoring chances and real goals compared to last year’s team.

Winnipeg’s forwards and defencemen are suffering this season, but the D’s numbers have dropped off dramatically. It’s leading to roughly three fewer Jets shots per game, based on Hohl’s math, on a team that’s taking five fewer shots per game than the one that came before it.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? A team that’s removed Nikolaj Ehlers, Mason Appleton and Rasmus Kupari and replaced them with Toews, Gustav Nyquist and Pearson might expect a bigger drop off from its forwards. It’s possible that some of the forwards’ impacts are affecting the D numbers — a defenceman can only make a pass if there’s someone in a good spot to pass it to, but I think it’s pointing at a bigger problem among Jets defencemen.

With Samberg hurt to start the year and Pionk hurt now, the Jets have had to push a lot of defencemen above their ideal playing tier.

Luke Schenn, Logan Stanley, Haydn Fleury and Colin Miller have the four worst controlled-exit percentages on the team. Schenn has been a healthy scratch of late, but his propensity for dusting the puck off and then failing to hit his exit pass helped contribute to long defensive zone shifts in the 16 games he played. (That said, it was Schenn’s exit pass that Nino Niederreiter collected off his skate on the way to scoring Winnipeg’s second goal on Saturday night.) Stanley has impressed in key moments and may help on the third pairing but was outmatched alongside Pionk in the season.

Let’s connect this idea back to Winnipeg’s lack of secondary scoring. Here are Winnipeg’s defencemen and their zone exit numbers. Note that 20 games have been tracked, but only one involving Salomonsson.

Wouldn’t it make sense that forwards who get their exit passes from Morrissey have better offensive numbers than the other Jets? Lo and behold, Morrissey has shared roughly 200 minutes of icetime with each of Connor, Scheifele and Vilardi and not as many as 100 minutes with any other Jets forward.

Samberg, whose controlled exit numbers are second best, has only played eight games, while Salomonsson’s sample is way too small for any conclusions. (He’s been beaten up in terms of goals against so far while making a high rate of successful exit passes.)

Here’s a reminder of what a clean exit pass can do, giving Niederreiter credit for the way he handled Schenn’s pass off his skate.

LOOKING FOR THE COOKIES 🍪 pic.twitter.com/QsbxMN3yPv

— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) November 30, 2025

What does it all mean? I think there is a real and dangerous temptation to blame Winnipeg’s lack of offence solely on the forwards who aren’t finishing their scoring chances. It would be a lot wiser to consider why the Jets aren’t generating scoring chances at all — and that’s a problem that starts well before Cole Perfetti, Toews or whoever gets stopped by a goaltender. Scoring chances turn into goals in the long run, even if failed chances burn in the memory right now. Perfetti’s relief-inducing goal against Nashville is proof; it came after multiple scoring chances in multiple recent Jets games.

The bigger problem is all of the chances you’re not seeing happen at all. A lack of transition could sink the Jets’ playoff chances far more effectively than a lack of finishing will, because transition problems are way more likely to last.

Winnipeg could use a prime-aged Blake Wheeler or Nikolaj Ehlers or any top-end forward who can single-handedly dominate transition hockey. The team’s more pressing need — by far — is another defenceman who can make stops and then move the puck.