There is plenty for the Winnipeg Jets and their fans to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
Monday afternoon, a couple of hours after the Jets wrapped up their first official practice with the 23 player roster they’ll take into Wednesday’s season opener in Calgary, the Jets dropped a bombshell on the local market — and the entire National Hockey League for that matter — by announcing the signing of centre Mark Scheifele and goalie Connor Hellebuyck to identical, seven-year, US$59.5-million contract extensions with an average annual value of US$8.5 million.
Both Scheifele and Hellebuyck were set to enter the 2023-24 season on expiring contracts that would have taken them into unrestricted free agency. Now it’s pretty much a given, the two stars will play their entire NHL careers in Winnipeg as they’ll both be 38 years old when their contracts expire at the end of the 2030-31 season.
And for Scheifele – who played his first ever NHL game exactly 12 years ago to the day – that means a lot because the player he grew up idolizing was former Detroit great and current Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman who spent his entire career wearing the “winged wheel.”
There was plenty of speculation — and opinion — about what the Jets should or shouldn’t do as the situation played out over the summer and into the start of training camp.
The term “that ship has sailed” was used by one media outlet during the NHL Combine to describe the Hellebuyck camp shutting down any talk of an extension beyond the coming season.
On July 1, and again at the start of training camp, Winnipeg general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff spoke vaguely, but also positively, about discussions with both players.
Following the first on-ice session of Jets training camp on Sept. 22, both Scheifele and Hellebuyck said quite clearly they were open to remaining in Winnipeg past this season, but also added the situation was not in their total control.
Scheifele is the last remaining player on the team who was also in the lineup for the Jets historic game on Oct. 9, 2011, against Montreal when the NHL officially returned to Winnipeg following the relocation of the franchise from Atlanta.
The 30-year-old, six-foot-five, 198-lb center is the first-ever draft pick of the 2.0 version of the Jets and is going into his 11th full NHL season. The Kitchener, Ont., native is coming off a career-best, 42-goal season to boost his overall total in a Winnipeg uniform to 272. Scheifele also has amassed 373 assists for 645 points in 723 NHL games.
Hellebuyck was the Jets’ fifth-round pick in the 2013 entry draft and over the past eight NHL seasons has played in 445 games for Winnipeg. The 30-year-old from Commerce, Mich., has compiled a record of 238-154-37 to go along with a career 2.66 goals against average, .916 saves percentage, and 32 shutouts.
Hellebuyck is coming off a season that saw him receive his third nomination for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s outstanding goalie. The six-foot-four, 216-lb netminder won that award in 2020 when he was also named an NHL First All-Star.
Both players, along with Cheveldayoff and head coach Rick Bowness, are scheduled to speak with the media following practice Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. prior to the team’s flight to Calgary to open the regular season versus the Flames on Wednesday night at Scotiabank Saddledome.