It’s a clean slate for the Jets and the visiting Dallas Stars when both teams open their NHL regular seasons Thursday night in Winnipeg.
While both teams made changes this offseason, their cores remain largely intact — including Kyle Connor, who signed an eight-year, $96 million extension with Winnipeg on Wednesday. One new face for the Jets is Gustav Nyquist, aiming to rebound after a 28-point season split between Nashville and Minnesota.
“It requires hard work,” said Nyquist on adjusting to Winnipeg’s system. “It comes down to all five guys on the ice having to want to do it. That’s the standard we set here in camp. It’s a system that’s hard to play against… and if the reward is to win a game, which they did a lot of (last year), then it’s easy to do it.”
Winnipeg captured the Presidents’ Trophy as the team with the best regular-season record in 2024-25, but the Stars had the last laugh in the Stanley Cup playoffs, besting the Jets 4-2 in their second-round series before going on to lose to the Edmonton Oilers in the following round.
Getting to three straight appearances in the Western Conference finals isn’t satisfying to everyone in Dallas.
“There’s definitely a lot of positives to build off of,” said Stars forward Alexander Petrovic. “There’s that one little extra percent, maybe a little more intense in practice, maybe a little finished check in the forecheck and backcheck… those little things just add up at the end of the game and at the end of the series.”
Injuries piled up at training camp, more seriously for the Jets who will be missing defensemen Dylan Samberg and Cole Perfetti for weeks as Samberg deals with a broken wrist and Perfetti manages a high ankle sprain.
“We learned from it last year. We needed the depth. … You don’t do what we did through the season if you don’t have it and I think we’re even deeper this year,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “We didn’t want this to happen this fast with (Samberg) and (Perfetti), but at the end of the day I feel better with the group sitting here right now.”
Also, both clubs will be missing their captains early on, with the Jets’ Adam Lowry still rehabbing offseason hip surgery and Dallas’ Jamie Benn out with a collapsed lung.
The Stars will also be without forward Oskar Back, out with an undisclosed injury for the next week or so.
Dallas kicks off its schedule with three straight against the Central Division, moving on from Winnipeg to play Colorado on Saturday and Minnesota at home on Tuesday.
“We might as well get at it,” said Stars coach Glen Gulutzen. “Whether you’re trying to win at this time of the year or at the end of the year, you’ve got to go through the best to get it done, so you might as well do it early to test yourself. … All a win does is buy you 24 hours of peace.”
