Mark Scheifele Tops Our 2019 Top 10 Winnipeg Jets List

There is no question in our minds, Mark Scheifele is far and away the best Jet as the team’s number one center took all six first place votes in our first ever ranking of the top 10 Winnipeg Jets. Defenseman Josh Morrissey and team captain Blake Wheeler round out the top ten in a vote that saw 12 different players be mentioned as being in the top 10.

August as we’ve well established is a month for countdowns as we’ve seen NHL Network go position by position on their yearly top 20 lists and many different hockey sites and publications unveiling prospect rankings.

A few weeks ago we filled out who our own personal favorite Jets are, but this time around we wanted to let those personal biases go and vote with our hockey brain and not our hockey heart. While only a couple of us had 55 as our top favorite Jet, we all agreed he was by far the best on the team at the moment as he set career highs in goal scoring and points while adding five more points in six playoff games this past season.

Morrissey had the most second place votes and Wheeler had had the most third place votes which is reflected in the final results. Even if Jacob Trouba had remained a Jet, it would have been hard to see Morrissey not ending up as the highest ranking defenseman on the team. The captain meanwhile led the Jets in points, but with 71 of those 91 points being assists, it’s likely that Scheifele’s all-around play and goal scoring ability made him look more favorable.

Big Buff played in only 42 games this past season and that may be the biggest reason why he may have missed out on the top three. He’s now had two seasons in a row where he’s struggled to stay healthy and given his rough and rugged play style, we are starting to wonder if that is catching up with him in his career.

The two Jets RFA’s – and two players who Jets fans have a healthy debate on right now in terms of who is more important to sign – come in at five and six. KC didn’t suffer any kind of sophomore slump this past season with 34 goals and 66 points. Laine meanwhile had very notable slides in his goal scoring ability, not to mention questions about his overall 200 foot play which likely hurt him in our rankings.

And again we state, don’t trade Nik Ehlers.

The Jets starting goalie was placed as high as third on one top ten list and didn’t even make it on another person’s list entirely. Goalies being voodoo and hard to relatively compare to the gusy in front of him made placing where he should go on a list that much harder.

Arguably the Jets best defensive forward got five ninth place votes which locked him into our top ten even though he finished 10th in scoring among current Jets forwards. (Brandon Tanev also placed higher than him, but he of course doesn’t count now)

Andrew Copp somewhat surprisingly gets the nod for tenth spot over the likes of Brian Little and Matthieu Perreault. Is it possible that some of us in JetsNation are factoring in expectations for a big year as the 25 year old heads into his sixth NHL season?

Our top ten list was comprised of six JetsNation staff members (myself, Cody & Kyle B from the JN Podcast, Alec B, Zee & Eric M) submitting their own top ten lists. Much like NHL awards voting, points were given for each placement, meaning a vote at number one earned 10 points, a placement at number two was awarded nine points, and so on.

Scheifele, Josh Morrissey, Blake Wheeler, Kyle Connor, Patrik Laine and Nik Ehlers were the only six forwards to make all six lists. Jack Roslovic did recieve one eighth place vote while Brian Little was given a couple of 10th place nods.

We’ll reveal individual results of the voting and personal comments from JN staff members on their own personal lists over the next couple of days.