A night of achievements for the Winnipeg Jets + round one playoff schedule released

It was quite the final night of the regular season for the Winnipeg Jets last night. With all eyes set on a final tune-up before the playoffs, the Jets were able to continue playing some of their best hockey of the season with a 4-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks.

On the surface, this game might not have seemed very important to the Jets. After all, the lineup looked way different than it did on Tuesday against the Seattle Kraken. The lineup included 2 players making their NHL debuts. Brad Lambert, 1st round pick from the 2022 draft, picked up a secondary assist for his first NHL point. The other debut was from Nikita Chibrikov, a 2nd rounder from 2021, who scored his 1st career goal in what eventually would be the game winner for the Jets. Another individual achievement on the night came from Sean Monahan, who became the only player in the NHL this season to play a rare 83 game season. Monahan played 49 games with the Montreal Canadiens before being acquired by the Jets, where he would play 34 games.

The individual moments were great to see, but it’s the achievements the team were able to accomplish on the final day of the regular season that made the night that much more special for the team and the fans. The first one was winning the Jennings trophy. The dynamic duo of Connor Hellebuyck and Laurent Brossoit allowed a league low 199 goals this season. The total, 199, was just one less than the Florida Panthers duo of Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz. The William Jennings Trophy is awarded to the goalie(s) of the team that allow the least amount of goals in the season. Unfortunately Brossoit won’t officially have his name on the trophy, as a goalie must play 25 games to qualify and Brossoit finished just 2 shy of that total, appearing in 23 games this season.

The next thing to note was the actual win itself. Again, without knowing, the importance of the Jets win last night didn’t seem to mean much. They already secured home ice advantage against the Colorado Avalanche for their round 1 matchup, and they weren’t able to catch the Dallas Stars at the top of the Central division. But get this, that win gave the Jets not one, not two, not three, but four achievements. Some of them are more important than the others, but when you look at them all together you realize that this win actually did mean something in the end to the Jets.

The first, and probably most noteworthy achievement that the win did for the Jets was tying their franchise record for wins in a season with 52. The win also extended the Jets win streak to 8 games, which also ties their franchise record for wins in a row. But that’s not all, the win last night also allowed the Jets to finish as the top Canadian team in the league. If all of that wasn’t enough, the win also allowed the Jets to finish 2nd overall in the Western conference and 4th overall in the NHL standings.

So it was quite the night of achievements for the Winnipeg Jets on the final game of the regular season. The playoffs are still to come, but nobody could have seen the success the Jets were able to accomplish in the regular season. Take into account that before this 8 game win streak, the Jets were on a 6 game losing streak, and had some people questioning what the team was going to be playing like going into the playoffs. Speaking of the playoffs, you can now finally see the full round 1 schedule for the Winnipeg Jets. After game 4, the times for game 5, 6 and 7 are still to be determined, likely due to how the other series around the league end up going.

Below is the round 1 schedule for the Winnipeg Jets, and game number 1 is coming up on Sunday night. Who’s ready for playoff hockey!

Jets (2nd Central) vs. Avalanche (3rd Central) Round 1 Schedule (all times in Central)

Game 1: Sunday, April 21st at 6:00 PM in Winnipeg

Game 2: Tuesday, April 23rd at 8:30 PM in Winnipeg

Game 3: Friday, April 26th at 9:00 PM in Colorado

Game 4: Sunday, April 28th at 1:30 PM in Colorado

Game 5: Tuesday, April 30th, TBD in Winnipeg*

Game 6: Thursday, May 2nd, TBD in Colorado*

Game 7: Saturday, May 4th, in TBD Winnipeg*

* = If necessary