A quick check of the Winnipeg Jets’ historical records won’t show Mark Scheifele residing atop any of the categories. But when it comes to offence and the various departments related to scoring, it’s only a matter of time before he’s the front-runner.
Entering Tuesday night’s 60th game of the season, Scheifele found himself second overall on three distinct lists in the team’s annals, sitting within striking distance of a pair of those records, including most points.
With an assist on Kyle Connor’s team-leading 26th goal in their loss to Seattle on Tuesday, Scheifele recorded his 700th career point — a milestone only bettered, and for likely only a short period to come — by former captain Blake Wheeler.
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During his tenure with the Jets, Wheeler totalled 812 points in 897 games, while Scheifele sits just 112 points in arrears but with 119 fewer games played.
And with the 30-year-old Scheifele on yet another point-per-game pace this season — which could be his seventh in the last eight years — he’ll not only blow past Wheeler in short order, but put the points record so far out of reach that it might not be touched for decades, never mind years.
A quick calculation has Scheifele being 65 points ahead of Wheeler by the time he’s played the same number of games in a Jets uniform — and probably with a few other franchise records smashed by his stick too — long before he gets there.
Now, understandably there’s been a lot of numbers to chew on in this discussion, but the bottom line is this: Mark Scheifele will eventually be Winnipeg’s all-time leading scorer well before he’s done playing — and not only will not be close, it might not be unattainable for anyone to supersede.
Now he’s not there yet, historically, but that assist Tuesday night for point number 700 of his career got him one notch closer to the very top of the list.
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