NHL Rumors: Jets Could Pivot Away From Ehlers For 2 Reasons

It's unlikely the Jets will get into a 'bidding war' for pending UFA Nikolaj Ehlers

Nikolaj Ehlers is one of the top names on the free agent market as a pending UFA this summer. He's spent his entire 10-year career with the Winnipeg Jets and has consistently been a top-six scoring threat, this year just missing out on his sixth 25-goal season, finishing with 24 and a career second-best 63 points.

But as noted by Adam Proteau in The Hockey News, it's unlikely the Jets will get into a 'bidding war' for Ehlers, despite their hefty $25+ million in cap space. He suggests two reasons that the Jets will tread carefully when weighing how big to spend on Ehlers on a new contract:

1) The 29-year-old has a spotty record in the playoffs over his decade with the team, sporting only nine goals and 21 points in 45 games. Yes, he did have an impact this season, with five goals in eight games, but that was an outlier. Proteau notes that Ehlers' point-per-game rate drops from 0.77 in the regular season to just 0.47 when the chips are down in the playoffs.

2) Health. As a youngster, he started out strongly, with three complete 82-game (or 71-game, in the case of the pandemic-shortened year) seasons. But he's missed 70 games over the past four NHL campaigns.

Would the Jets be 'better off' going after Boeser than re-signing Ehlers?

Proteau goes on to suggest that Winnipeg would be "better off avoiding Ehlers" and instead, going after fellow UFA goal-scoring forward Brock Boeser. The Vancouver Canucks' 28-year-old nine-year veteran is a goal-scorer of similar stature, but he has fared much better in his playoff outings, with 11 goals and 23 points in 29 games. In 2023-24, when the Canucks last made the postseason, Boeser compiled seven goals and 12 points in 12 games.

In addition, opposite to Ehlers, Boeser's availability has become more dependable as he's aged, struggling to play full seasons in the first few years of his career, but missing a total of only 27 games over the last five seasons combined.

Is it time for the Jets to change things up?

The Jets have had some excellent regular-seasons of late, but their continued playoff struggles to advance deep (just one round won in the last three years), seem to point to a need to change things up.

As Proteau suggests, "at some point, it’s got to be time to alter the chemical composition of this team, and that means being willing to let someone like Ehlers walk away."