There may still be half a season to play for the Winnipeg Jets, but the team’s performance during last week’s three-game road trip has left no doubt that the jig is up.
I fancy myself as an eternal optimist, but watching the Jets find three different ways to lose in Detroit, Toronto and Ottawa — after the back-to-back, “deserved a better result” defeats on home ice to Minnesota and Edmonton coming out of the Christmas break — the glass isn’t even half empty. It’s bone dry.
And you’d have to think there is a similar mindset developing in the sixth-floor offices at True North Square.
Maybe not to the extreme of utter hopelessness described here, but the harsh realization is this team, in its current makeup, is incapable of playing itself out of what is now a franchise record tailspin.
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That became clearly evident during the second-half collapse in Toronto, and then the brutal second period Saturday night in Ottawa.
Change is expected. It’s required at this point.
And before we even go there, I call B.S. on that old theory about “you can’t replace 20 players, so it’s easier to fire the coach.”
Because in this scenario, 20 players don’t need to be replaced. There’s still a solid core group here.
Who knows if one or two changes result in the spark Scott Arniel has been trying to ignite for the past two months?
And the head coach wasn’t burying his head in the sand during the 9-3 start either. This group had been forewarned well in advance of the bottom falling out.
Perhaps there will be a desired response from the anticipated callups of Manitoba Moose prospects — who now see a real opportunity to make the big club, for the first time in years.
If it takes even more transactions to produce results, continue to ship out those players who have performed their way into “expendable” status.
As we’ve witnessed over the first 40 games of 2025-26, that’s a list that runs deep.
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