The tough decisions have been made and now it’s time to drop the puck on the 2021 NHL season.
The Winnipeg Jets announced they’ve signed forward Trevor Lewis after submitting their opening night roster and taxi squad.
Lewis, 34, attended training camp on a professional tryout offer and impressed enough to earn a one-year contract worth $750,000. Lewis spent his entire 12-year NHL career with the Los Angeles Kings where he won a pair of Stanley Cups.
According to general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, Lewis adds a new dimension to the club.
“Lewis winning the Stanley Cups — like those are things, again, I know when you have those experiences, and you can bring them into a locker room, players gravitate towards that,” Cheveldayoff said.
“You’re gonna see players asking, it’s kinda like the scene from Bull Durham when they’re at the back of the bus, and they’re asking about, like, ‘you played in the show,’ like, ‘you won a Stanley Cup’. Like, those are the things that drive players that create excitement and help build that team camaraderie.”
Lewis scored six goals with six assists in 56 games last season.
The Jets also reassigned four players to the AHL’s Manitoba Moose. Defencemen Ville Heinola, and Nelson Nogier, along with forwards Cole Perfetti, and C.J. Suess were all sent to their top farm team.
The club has also placed both Bryan Little and Dominic Toninato on long term injured reserve to maximize salary cap space. Toninato failed his medical at the start of training camp.
That left the Jets five players for their taxi squad which was introduced this season in case of a COVID-19 outbreak. Mikhail Berdin, Dylan Samberg, Logan Stanley, David Gustafsson and Mathieu Perreault make up the Jets’ maximum six-player taxi squad, but that’s expected to change before their season opener against the Calgary Flames on Thursday.
With Little going on long-term injured reserve, it creates enough cap space to move Perreault back onto the active roster.
The Jets currently have 22 players on their active roster, just one short of the 23-man roster maximum.
The Jets host the Calgary Flames in their home opener at Bell MTS Place on Thursday.