It’s the middle of July and hockey news is coming at us about as fast as a Matt Hendricks breakaway, which is to say… Holy crap we’re kinda bored!

Look, we could spend the next few weeks dissecting the Jets current lineup, their salary cap issues, their past as the team formerly known as the Thrashers, their future as supreme overlords of the NHL West.. And we probably will in some shape or form – especially as restricted free agents get signed.

*looks* Nope, Trouba still isn’t signed to a long term deal.

But as previously mentioned, it’s freakin July and that’s prime time to do some quality shitposting on a hockey blog. What better way to do it than a good ol fashioned “JetsNation Fan Favorite Tournament Of Death!”

….

I’ve just been advised by our lawyers that we legally can not make this a tournament of death.

Over the next month or so, each day we’re going to post a new matchup for you to vote on through Twitter. You’ll have 24 hours to rock the vote for your favorite player and then we move on to the next match. Pretty simple right?

What does the tournament bracket look like? Well… that’s the thing. I can’t (or maybe more to the point, don’t want to) show you yet. There are a few surprise first round matches coming in the next two weeks. Some details I can tell you is that the tournament has two sides, 16 players (give or take) from the current Jets 2.0 era and 16 (or more, a few more in fact) from the Jets 1.0 era, but only limited to the NHL years.

Sorry Anders and Ulf. Screw off Bobby.

32(+) players all to decide via the VERY scientific method of Twitter polls and random placements on a tournament bracket who Winnipeg Jets fans love the most more than any other player who has ever played for a Winnipeg NHL Franchise.

Anyway, enough of the preamble… Let’s get to the first match.

#1 center versus #2 (again, maybe, we think, we’re not quite sure yet) center and this might be a bit of a mismatch to lead things off which is funny because a few years ago it would have been a lot closer. Bryan Little was one of the players from the Atlanta Thrasher days that actually had talent and was a consistent performer. His first three full NHL seasons as a Jet saw him score 20+ goals.

Scheifele wasn’t exactly greeted with arms wide open when he was the first draft pick of the newly re-christened Jets back in 2011 (*insert snide Sean Couturier comment here*) but he has grown into one of the league’s top centers which makes previous hot takes about him seem rather silly in retrospect…

Like I said, this is probably a mismatch, but Little still has his fans, right? And besides, what good would a first round tournament be if there wasn’t at least a few lopsided matches?