Winnipeg Jets sign Brandon Tanev to a One-Year, Two-Way contract

The Winnipeg Jets have signed Brandon Tanev to a one-year, two-way contract for the 2016-17 season. Tanev was signed last season as a college free-agent, which was broken here at Jets Nation.

Tanev’s time with the Jets last season was short. He dressed for three games and only played 31.5 5v5 minutes.

The Jets were severely outshot with Tanev on the ice, with the team controlling only 41.7 per cent of the shots directed at the net, but the sample is extremely limited to make any real evaluation out of the numbers. He had no points over those three games.

The 24-year-old speedy winger was lined up with Adam Lowry and Chris Thorburn, playing bottom-six minutes while the other bottom-six line was Nic Petan, Andrew Copp, and Joel Armia.

While linematching plays a very minimal role for most players in the NHL, in small samples they can be a large factor. During his three games, Tanev’s line spent most of their time matching up against the opposition’s top-six, in order to shelter the then rookie, fourth-line of Petan, Copp, and Armia.

Tanev will be one competing for only a few bottom-six roster spots on the Jets, as the team has increased their depth over the summer with the forward additions of Quinton Howden, Shawn Matthias, Patrik Laine, and Kyle Connor.

The team will likely have Laine in the top-six with Bryan Little, Drew Stafford, Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers, and Blake Wheeler, and Paul Maurice hinted the third-line centre role will likely go to Matthieu Perreault. This leaves six-to-seven regular roster positions for Tanev to fight over Lowry, Thorburn, Armia, Copp, Matthias, Petan, Connor, Howden, Marko Dano, Alexander Burmistrov, Anthony Peluso, and any potential surprises at camp.

It should be noted that Copp, Petan, Connor, and Dano are all able to be assigned to the AHL without waivers.