The start of Winnipeg Jets training camp has been anything but quiet as for a third day in a row another Jet became part of a big story, this time with Dustin Byfuglien asking for and being granted a leave of absence by the club. The team was quick to point out that Dustin and his family are all fine health wise and that there was no concern there. Paul Maurice explained it “nothing sinister” which in a way is too bad because we were really hoping this was the start of a nefarious plan by Buff to take over the entire world.

I for one would welcome our new bone crushing, body dragging overlord.

People will speculate online as to the reason why he’s left and while that’s to be expected in today’s social media soaked 24/7 coverage of sports, one hopes that by now Dustin has earned a large share of good will from Jets fans who really should just relax and take it easy with the wild and baseless speculation. He’s a 14 year veteran, he’s dedicated eight of those seasons to Winnipeg and when he signed a contract back in 2016, he really was one of the first of the team’s “star players” to buy-in on not only on the future of the Jets, but to playing in Winnipeg which was still a little bit in question at the time.

Edmonton Oilers – Announced C Kyle Brodziak has retired.

Toronto Maple Leafs – Re-signed F Mitchell Marner to a six-year, $65,358,000 million contract.

Florida Panthers – Signed D Vladislav Kolyachonok to a three-year, $2,427,501 million entry level contract.

Winnipeg ICE – 3 (Muir, Harsh, Smallwood)
Saskatoon Blades – 4 (Dach[2], Walford, Lisowsky)

With the absences of Kyle Connor and Patrik Laine along with now Dustin Byfuglien, Winnipeg Sun’s Scott Billeck reports that there is plenty of experimenting to be done for the Jets as camp moves along.

Experimentation at the top of Jets’ to-do list as camp opens – Winnipeg Sun

Ken Wiebe over at The Athletic asks five questions the Jets will have to sort out over the next few weeks. As important as the first question is, it’s the third – just how will the defense pairings shake out – that will be very interesting to watch over the next while, especially with Byfuglien gone.

Five key questions the Jets need to answer heading into training camp– The Athletic

Over at TSN, they turned their focus to Nik Ehlers who spent the summer reviewing a ton of tape from last season while he was training and is looking to have an even better season in 2019-20 which right now is very welcome news.

Ehlers turns focus inward in bid for bounce-back season – TSN

Both Spinorama Hockey and Jets Center were at the Jets Fan Fest festivities on Friday night and have a nice run down of the event including plenty of pictures on each of their Twitter accounts.

The Jets announced the splitting of the training camp roster into two separate groups which of course is pretty standard for most NHL clubs at the start of camps. Like last year, there is a definite NHL bound / AHL bound feel to the groups, but of course nothing is set in stone as of now. A year ago Logan Stanley was in with the main “NHL group” and still was sent to the Moose by the end of camp. Marko Dano was placed on the AHL side which of course caused some concern and it turned out it did in fact end up being a precursor to him being placed in the AHL.

The only real gripe I ever have with the splitting of groups is that they boringly go with “group 1” and “group 2” when they could have some fun with it and go “Jets Wolfpac” and “Jets Hollywood” (And no I do not apologize for dropping a wrestling reference here)

Overall reception to the new “Heritage Blue” jerseys was very positive…

Funny little side note provided by Mike McIntyre from Paul Maurice where it seems like Paul is kind of wishing he could take back his “ruffled feathers” comment from the end of last season…