The countdown continues for the Jets 2025-26 home opening against the Stars, approaching Mark Scheifele (55) days to go. After a second brief break from the “goals and expectations” series where I looked at some upcoming Jets milestones and a few players that have something to prove this season, it’s time to talk about Neal Pionk. I promised in my last article from this series (on Josh Morrissey) that I would look at another member of the Jets blue line, and now it’s the 2nd pairing right handed shooting Pionk’s turn to be in the spotlight.

Neal Pionk is an undrafted recently turned 30-year old defenceman from Omaha, Nebraska. After playing two seasons for the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Pionk joined the New York Rangers organization. After two seasons with the Rangers, Pionk was part of the return in the “infamous” Jacob Trouba trade which sent Trouba to the Rangers and Pionk and a 2019 1st round pick to the Jets. Pionk collected a career high 45 points in his 1st season with the Jets. After his 1st season, Pionk became an important member of the Jets blue line, and has averaged 34 points in the last 5 seasons. Pionk was in the final season of his 4 year, $23.5 million contract, but the Jets wasted no time extending Pionk, signing him to a new deal on April 17th, 2025 for 6 years, $42 million. This new contract will very much weigh into Pionk’s expectations for the 2025-26 season.

This may be surprising to some people, but Pionk finished 6th in Jets scoring last season. After back to back 82 game seasons, Pionk missed a bit of time last season, finishing with 69 games. In 536 career games, Pionk has 44 goals and 212 assists for 256 points. The 2025-26 season will be year 1 of Pionk’s new fairly pricey contract, so there will be a certain level of “pressure” on Pionk. Dylan Samberg and Neal Pionk will be very likely work together again on the Jets 2nd pairing, who also will be starting year 1 of his newly signed contract.

I noticed improvements in Neal Pionk’s defensive game last season. As a more “offensive minded” defenceman, Pionk was previous known for causing “chaos” on the ice (quite frequently) after he made a mistake such as a turnover. This led fans to begin to worry about Pionk’s overall reliability, but last season Jets fans noticed less costly mistakes from Pionk. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what changed, but Pionk just seemed to gel better with his defence partner Dylan Samberg, and that led to more success for the both of them. Pionk should play 20+ minutes per game again this season, with some of his production coming from the 2nd powerplay unit and even occasionally from the penalty kill.

The Jets can’t afford for Pionk to start his new contract on a bad note. $7 million isn’t cheap for a 2nd line defenceman, but with the upcoming rising salary cap, this contract should age decently if Pionk continues to play to the best of his abilities. Dylan DeMelo remains on the Jets top pairing on the right side as he compliments Josh Morrissey’s offensive style with his defense first approach. Aside from DeMelo, Pionk doesn’t have much “competition” on the right side, so he shouldn’t lose his current spot in the lineup. Elias Salomonsson, Luke Schenn and Colin Miller are some of the other Jets right handed defense down lower in the depth chart, so Pionk can’t afford to lose production or minutes yet in his age 30 season.

If Pionk wants to really impress in the 1st year of his new contract, he’ll need to crack the 40 point mark for the 2nd time in his career. Dylan Samberg is only getting better, so his improvements will result in him and Pionk getting more opportunities. I’d like to see Pionk’s total penalty minutes go down too, as he’s been averaging around 50 penalty minutes a season which is well above the league average for defenceman. Overall, I want to see Pionk have another 10 goal season with 30 assists while being even more noticeable (in a good way) on the ice on a nightly basis.

Here are some general goals that I would like to see from Neal Pionk in the 2025-26 season: