Welcome back to another edition of the “Jets Nation year in review” series to wrap up the Winnipeg Jets 2025-26 season. This series continues into the first half of July as the NHL Draft and the first few days of NHL free agency are now in the past. I’ll continue to look at the individual seasons from Jets players throughout the 2025-26 season and also take a quick look ahead to what the upcoming 2026-27 season may have in store for each player. This afternoon’s players (another double feature for this one) is two of the Jets players who went to the 2026 Olympics who continue to prove that they are stars in this league, and a big part of the Jets core past the 2025-26 season: Kyle Connor and Josh Morrissey.

Both Jets stars entered the 2025-26 season looking to continue where they left off from the 2024-25 season. Kyle Connor was entering the final year of his contract (before signing a new contract in early October), and Josh Morrissey was in the later stages of his current contract which has proven to be great value for the team. Although the Jets as a team had a down season while not making the playoffs, both Connor and Morrissey were close to replicating their best seasons with the Jets as they continue to be the “most impactful” players alongside Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck.

Kyle Connor’s 2024-25 season was his best in terms of points, as reached 97 points in a full 82 game season. In the 2025-26 season, Connor once again appeared in all 82 games, scoring 39 goals and 53 assists for 92 points, his 3rd highest point total of his career. Each of those stats are only slightly down from last season, and considering how the Jets overall team scoring went down, this year was a great success for Connor.

Connor remained a very well disciplined player, only collecting 16 penalty minutes in the whole season. Connor had a -2 +/- rating, and his shooting percent was 14.2%, right around his current excellent career average shooting percentage of 14.7%. During the mid-season NHL break, Connor was named to Team USA for the 2026 Olympics. Unfortunately for Connor, his 2026 Olympics went pretty similar to how his 2025 Four Nations Faceoff tournament went. Connor appeared in just two round robin games for Team USA. After recording 0 points in these games he was a healthy scratch for the rest of the Olympics, as he just didn’t seem to fit in the lineup that Team USA wanted to give them the best chance at winning.

Looking ahead to Connor’s 2026-27 season, it will be an important year for the now 29-year old winger. Connor has played 695 games for the Jets, scoring 323 goals and 351 assists for 674 points. Connor signed the richest contract in Jets franchise history in October 2025, an eight-year extension worth a total value of $96 million. The average annual value of $12 million won’t expire until 2034, when Connor will be a free agent at age 37. Comparing Connor’s production to the current market for top line wingers, the $12 million cap hit should very much be justified provided that Connor continues to excel on the Jets top line with Mark Scheifele.

Over to Josh Morrissey now, who had a slight drop in production for the 4th straight season since his breakout 76 point season back in 2022-23. That 76 point season was of course going to be very difficult to replicate, so it’s not a surprise that Morrissey has dropped off a little bit in terms of scoring. Morrissey continued to be great defensively on the Jets top pairing alongside the defensive defenceman Dylan DeMelo. Morrissey appeared in 77 games, recording 14 goals and 41 assists for 55 points.

Morrissey had only 30 penalty minutes this season, a very respectful number for a top pairing defenceman who continues to play in big minutes in the middle stages of his career. Morrissey finished the season with a +6 +/- rating, and he continued to be great at blocking shots, recording 118 blocked shots to increase his career total to 1118 blocked shots. Morrissey was named to Team Canada for the 2026 Olympics, but unfortunately his tournament ended early as he was injured in his first game and wasn’t able to recover before the tournament concluded.

The 31-year old defenceman will now enter year 7 of 8 of his current contract in the 2026-27 season. Morrissey’s current cap hit is only $6.25 million, a great bargain considering the level of excellence that Morrissey has been able to bring as the Jets number one defenceman. Morrissey will be an unrestricted free agent at age 33, and although it’s unclear what his future will hold, the Jets will very likely try to bring him back on a deal which will keep him a Winnipeg Jet for close to the remainder of his career.

There’s not much else to say about both Kyle Connor and Josh Morrissey, as they continue to be two very important contributors to the Winnipeg Jets franchise. The 2026-27 season should continue to bring success for these two stars, and Jets fans will have lots to look forward to with both players as they continue their fantastic careers in Winnipeg.

The 2026 NHL Free Agency opening week continues, as the Jets continue to explore options both on the trade market and depth from the remaining unrestricted free agents. Stay tuned for the next edition of the Jets Nation “year in review” series article coming in a few days! There will likely be just a few more editions left, as I will be combining most of the remaining players together in the upcoming articles!

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